Jakarta, Sept 7 (Antara) - While sending 168,800 pilgrims to Saudi Arabia, Indonesia is inspecting the state of hajj preparations in Arafah, Muzdalifah and Mina where millions of pilgrims will be hosted when the hajj rituals are at a peak in Mecca.
Indonesian Minister of Religious Affairs Lukman Hakim Saifuddin, in his capacity as the Indonesian hajj pilgrims' leader, accompanied by Abdul Djalil, the director general of hajj affairs, and M Jasin, the inspector general of the Religious Affairs Ministry, toured Arafah, Muzdalifah and Mina plains on Tuesday to see the preparations.
The minister checked out the preparations regarding hajj tents, catering services, power supplies, health services and toilet facilities. He spent hours touring around Arafah, Muzdalifah and Mina plains to ensure that Muassasah (the Saudi hajj organizer) meets the requirements agreed to in the contract.
The peak rituals will take place in the Arafah plain on Zulhijjah 9, or September 11, 2016 Saudi time.
The minister asked the Muassasah to pay attention to electricity supplies and toilet facilities for pilgrims. Regarding toilets, the minister asked that the ratio of toilets for women and men should 60:40 because there are more female pilgrims than men.
As for electricity, the minister asked the organizer to pay attention to power supplies and ensure there is no power outage. Power outage would disturb the operation of water fans for pilgrims. "Nothing like the last year's incident, when there was power failure, should happen again. Electricity is vitally important, including for cellular phones as pilgrims would want to communicate," he instructed.
The minister also questioned the quality of the hajj tents.
"Is this strong? Should its construction be like this?" the minister questioned after finding a tent he thought was not strong enough as it was not supported by a pillar in the middle.
The workers of Muassasah, a private firm assigned by the Saudi government to organize the Hajj pilgrimage, explained that the tent was not the main one, and it would only be used by pilgrims for taking rest and conversing with each other.
The minister posed questions on the quality of the tents following an incident that took place during last year's pilgrimage season wherein a tent had collapsed and affected the ritual activities. On the Arafah plain, the pilgrims will stay in temporary open tents replete with carpets and water fans.
In Muzdalifah, the minister checked a carpet, which for the first time was being made available for the Indonesian Hajj pilgrims. Here, the pilgrims will stay for half a day until midnight to collect stones that they will use to hurl during the jumrah ritual.
During their stay in Muzdalifah, the pilgrims will be able to rest in tents with carpets.
In Mina, the pilgrims will use close-door tents equipped with air-conditioners as they will stay there for a longer period of time.
Several catering service companies have begun setting up kitchens and delivering food stocks to the Arafah field five days before the peak of the Hajj pilgrimage rituals in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
Based on Antara's observation in Arafah on Tuesday night (Saudi Time), several temporary fiber kitchens were being set up in the outer section of each plot of Hajj boarding.
Numerous cooking utensils, such as one-meter-diameter pots and rice cookers, were seen in the kitchens. Facilities to provide water are also being installed.
Firewood for cooking was seen piled outside the kitchens. This is in line with the Saudi Government's instruction to only use firewood for cooking.
The high temperature in the location is feared to trigger fires. According to Muassasah, the Hajj pilgrim organizer, fires could easily be localized if they break out while cooking using firewood.
As is known, it is impossible for the pilgrims to procure food from outside due to the density of traffic during the peak of the Hajj pilgrimage season. Hence, caterers have to set up temporary kitchens on the Arafah plain.
Besides this, the Saudi Government has also urged to use only bottled mineral water while in Arafah in order to maintain hygiene and the health of the pilgrims.
To this end, the Indonesian government has urged Muassasah to provide ice blocks, so that the pilgrims could use them to cool their bottled water.
A steady stream of trucks carrying food stocks were also seen arriving at the Arafah plain. They transported food items to fill the warehouses there. The food stocks included Thai rice, cooking oil, and mineral water.
At each of the locations, the Indonesian pilgrims will join their groups based on their maktab, or boarding facilities. There are 52 maktabs to be used by three thousand pilgrims each.
Half of the pilgrims will be served by 18 catering service companies, which have been hired by the Indonesian government. The remaining catering services are assigned by Muassasah.
The catering firms hired by the Indonesian government are obligated to provide Indonesian food to the pilgrims from Indonesia.
During their stay on the plains of Arafah, Muzdalifah and Mina, the Indonesian pilgrims will be offered snacks once and 15 meals.
In the meantime, the Muassasah has installed traffic lights to facilitate the scheduled hurling ritual and ensure the smooth flow of pilgrims from their boarding facilities in Mina to the hurling ritual site.
"I think this is good step to facilitate the movement of the pilgrims. This is a new one," Indonesian Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin stated.
The traffic lights will signal the right time for the pilgrims to head to the hurling ritual. Indonesian pilgrims are not allowed to perform the hurling ritual between 6 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. (Saudi Time) on September 12, from 2 p.m. to6 p.m. on September 13, and between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on September 14, 2016.
This year, the Indonesian government, through the Indonesian Hajj Organizer, is intensively disseminating information on the right time for Indonesian pilgrims to hurl stones at the ritual site in Jamarat. This is to avoid recurrence of the incident that occurred last year in which tens of Indonesians became victims of a stampede on Mina's street number 204.
Leaders of the Indonesian Hajj flight batches and groups are obligated to sign an agreement on their readiness to abide by the hurling ritual schedules as decided by Muassasah.
The leaders are also required to remind the pilgrims to abide by the designated lanes or routes to the hurling site. The pilgrims should not use other routes or even take lanes in the counter-flow direction. All Indonesian Hajj pilgrims will depart for the Arafah plain from morning until night on September 10.
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(T.A014/A/BESSR/A. Abdussalam) 07-09-2016 18:52:1 |
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