Daily Times

LAHORE: The Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) on the request of the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) has developed and launched an ‘Online Pilgrims Registration’ platform for the automation of the Nigerian Hajj operations for the year 2017.

Currently, 95,000 pilgrims from Nigeria will perform Hajj -20,000 through private tour operators and 75000 through government arrangements.

Earlier, the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria had approached the Pakistan’s Ministry of Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony for developing an information and communication technology (ICT) platform similar to the one developed by the Punjab Information Technology Board for Pakistan’s Hajj operations, exercised during the recent Hajj management, which was widely lauded by majority of the pilgrims.

In this connection, a Nigerian delegation had visited Pakistan’s Hajj Mission in Makkah twice to study the Hajj operations and termed the Punjab Information Technology Board’s Hajj management system pilgrim-friendly.

The Punjab Information Technology Board’s online registration platform has about 15 modules, which mainly includes registration of Hajj applications, selection of pilgrims through transparent e-balloting, automated flight scheduling and automated and centralised Hajj camps. A team from Punjab Information Technology Board visited Nigeria in March 2017 to gather the required data.

In May 2017, the Punjab Information Technology Board launched Nigeria’s Online Pilgrims Registration and trained five master trainers to further train officials in the 36 states of Nigeria and to extend it to 776 towns.

Underway is the development of a complaint management system for Hajj operations to handle pilgrims’ medical records as well as manage operations of 11 clinics in Saudi Arabia for Hajj 2017.

For the coming year, automation of state Hajj agencies, bio-metric database of all the pilgrims, tracking of pilgrims’ training attendance, vaccination inventory management, tracking of pilgrims’ vaccination, tracking of pilgrims’ visas, flight booking as per qualified air carriers, flight adjustments, building booking, room allocation, finance management system, and luggage module are in the pipeline.

The Punjab Information Technology Board’s electronic Hajj management system has vastly improved the services for intending pilgrims from Pakistan and curtailed the delays.

During the year 2017, ten designated banks with their 9,061 branches and more than 19,000 bank officials were involved for online registration for 10 days through a centralised system of Punjab Information Technology Board connected with VPN without a single second down time and balloting in 45 minutes on the completion of 10 days registration period, which earlier used to take three months.

The recent Hajj operation witnessed 338,696 entries declaring around 89,040 successful.

The balloting took place on group leader basis, resulting 22,997 groups successful. The Punjab Information Technology Board initiated the automation of Hajj operations in 2013, which has been further improved over the years.