Transparency and Expediency: Hand in Hand

Thursday, May 14, 2015

Previous methods and techniques used for Hajj registration system were manual, time consuming and at times biased. In order to encounter the biasness and fasten up the process, Punjab Information Technology Board started to work along with Ministry of Religious Affairs and initiated “Government Scheme Hajj Applicants Online Registration System”, for Hujjaj from all over Pakistan to get registered for Hajj through designated banks in a transparent manner.  The ultimate goal of online registration is to practice transparency, visibility and convenience eventually leading to computerized balloting. 

After multiple test-runs the system was made live on 27th April, 2015. For this purpose, the 10 designated banks throughout Pakistan has been working conjointly with PITB. The flow of applications in first 3 days was enormous, just on the first day 53,575 applications were submitted whereas, total number of applications received 269,328, out of which 43.4% are female applicants and 56.6% applications are submitted by males. The last date for submission of online applications was 8th May, 2015.


 

People from all five provinces are participating enthusiastically; 45.5% applications are received from Punjab whereas, 21.5% from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 21.2% from Sindh and remaining 11.8% from other provinces. Habib Bank Limited, Muslim Commercial Bank and United Bank Limited are top three banks worked devotedly in submitting online applications.

PITB is committed to facilitate stakeholders to provide transparency, visibility and expediency. It has given the opportunity for the hajj applicants to easily verify their basic information and group details by simply visiting http://www.inquiry.hajjinfo.org/. On the other hand, team of PITB has ensured 24x7 on-call availability, guidance and support to the banks in order to tackle all sorts of aroused system problems and issues. It has also provided VPN secure connectivity to the banks and training sessions were held in Lahore, Islamabad, Karachi to train the bank master trainers. The basic purpose to introduce this system is to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Hajj Management process by providing up-to-date and accurate information to the Ministry’s management.