Jakarta is set to have its own water treatment transmission network fully operational by 2012 as part of the city administration’s bid to improve the quality of water service, a regulatory board member says.
“The network is expected to produce an additional supply of 4,000 liters per second of treated water per day that would be transported to the city via closed pipes,” of the Jakarta Water Supply Regulation Body board member Firdaus Ali told The Jakarta Post on Friday.
The Rp 2.1 trillion (US$225 million) project is funded by the central government and private sectors and is expected to provide Jakarta residents with potable tap water.
Jakarta is facing an unprecedented challenge of water security, as the city administration fails to supply the ever-increasing population with access to clean water and its provision.
Many Jakarta residents have to pay extra for clean water, forcing them to overuse groundwater, the major cause of land subsidence in the city.
The latest water crisis took place early this month when more than 150,000 water connections in East Jakarta were hit following damage to pumps owned by PT Aetra Air Jakarta at the Pulogadung water installation.
Jakarta gets its tap water from the Jatiluhur dam in West Java, which is fed by the Tarum Barat River.
“The capacity for water production for Jakarta in the Jatiluhur dam has always been constant at 17,800 liters per second since 1998,” Ali said, adding that the amount could no longer meet the demand of Jakarta’s residents.
Water experts have criticized the city’s dependency on the dam, saying that it had to find other means that were sustainable, including building more absorption lakes.
Ali said the city administration had implemented an output-based aid scheme, together with the Global Partnership for Output Based Aid (GPOBA), a World Bank-administered subsidiary, having provided as many as 4,630 affordable water connections to underprivileged households in Jakarta.
But the number is still far from the 23,000 households targeted.
“The scheme is part of the drive to fulfill the government’s commitment to connecting 10 million households to piped water by 2013,” Ali said.
In addition, the central government, along with the city administration, has plans underway to fix open and leaking pipes in the West Tarum Canal (WTC), where water quality is substandard due to pollution from industrial and urban runoff in Bandung and surrounding areas.
The director of development of drinking water at the Public Works Ministry, Tamin M. Zakaria, said a siphon system to prevent pollutants from contaminating the water supply was needed in order to secure the conveyance of raw water to Jakarta.
Tamim added that regional tap water operators PDAM were set to receive an investment from a number of state-owned banks to accelerate the provision of water supply to the public across the archipelago.
“Three state-owned banks will eventually place Rp 3.7 trillion worth of investment as part of the government’s program to achieve the Millennium Development Goals’ target on water,” he said.
But PAM Jaya, the city’s tap water operator, is not eligible to be included in the scheme due to its concession contract with two foreign private operators, PT PAM Lyonnaise Jaya and PT Aetra Air Jakarta, signed in 1998.
“If they need funding, they could consider another scheme suitable to their condition, but it is definitely not the one regulated under the Presidential decree,” Tamim said.
Presidential decree No. 29 was issued in 2009 to provide a partial guarantee on interest for water supply acceleration, and to support a Finance Ministry regulation covering lending.
The Presidential decree provides procedures for withdrawal of foreign loans, extended directly to state or regional government-owned business entities. (tsy)
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