Private city water operator PT Aetra Air Jakarta has urged its customer, PT Pembangunan Jaya Ancol, to cancel the reverse osmosis treatment plan citing fears the facility would affect the cross-subsidy water tariff system.
“We hope Ancol will keep using our service because they are one of our biggest customers, which enables us to implement a subsidy system for low-tariff customers,” Aetra corporate secretary Yosua L. Tobing said Tuesday.
On June 11, Aetra president director Syahril Japarin sent a letter to city water operator PAM Jaya, asking PAM Jaya to explain whether it had issued Ancol a permit to build a reverse osmosis facility.
In the letter, released to the press, Syahril said he feared the (entailed) disruption to the cross-subsidy system would lead to an increase in charges for subsidized low-income customers and negatively impact the water operator’s business.
PAM Jaya director Mauritz Napitupulu said PAM Jaya had agreed to allow Ancol to use a reverse osmosis treatment plant to provide water supply to areas not covered by Aetra.
“We hope Ancol will keep using our water because PAM Jaya has an obligation to maintain the cross subsidy,” he said via telephone.
Yosua said Aetra had neither proposed any subsidy from the city nor asked Governor Fauzi Bowo for an increase in the tariff.
As a solution to Ancol’s water supply problems, he said, Aetra would offer to increase the water supply and pressure to Ancol.
He declined to comment on any possible complaints filed by Ancol on the water service, but made assurances that his company could supply any requested amount of water.
Ancol corporate planning department chief Nugroho Da Gomez did not respond to The Jakarta Post’s text messages and telephone calls on Tuesday.
Another Ancol official earlier said the US$5.72 million seawater reverse osmosis facility would provide clean water for the upscale residential areas and theme parks in Ancol, North Jakarta, in December.
“The facility will initially treat 5,000 cubic meters of seawater every day and gradually increase that amount to 10,000 cubic meters,” Ancol corporate secretary Fransiskus Xaverius Husni said.
When the desalination plant starts operation, Ancol would only need 7,000 cubic meters of water from Aetra, he added.
According to Aetra’s official website, the billed volume of water in 2009 reached 129.3 million cubic meters, or an average of 10.7 million cubic meters per month.
Husni said that currently, Aetra provided Ancol’s theme park and surrounding housing developments with 360,000 cubic meters of clean water per month under the highest tariff of Rp 12,000 (US$1.3) per cubic meter, compared to the subsidized tariff of Rp 1,000 per cubic meter.
