New year, more burial grounds for the poor

The City government said on Monday that it would allocate more burial grounds to low-income families this year.

Jakarta Cemetery and Parks Agency head Catharina Suryowati said that the city would provide 677 graves for Jakarta’s deceased from poor backgrounds, up 346 from last year. She said the city government had earmarked Rp 944.2 million (US$105,000) in budget for buying land for burial grounds of the poor.

“[To get the free plot of land], residents only need to show a pauper letter to heads of the local community who will later forward the letter to operators of relevant burial grounds,” she said.

Catharina added that North Jakarta would receive the largest allocation with 275 graves. East Jakarta will receive 226 units, West Jakarta 70 units, Central Jakarta 56 units and South Jakarta 50 units.

The 2006 bylaw on regional retribution stipulates that the poor in the capital should receive free plots in some of the city-run cemeteries.

The city administration could charge higher-income earners to secure a spot at city-run burial grounds. The fee covers three years and ranges between Rp 40,000 and Rp 100,000.

To extend a resident’s land-use will cost them 50 percent of the surcharge.

The Cemetery and Parks Agency has repeatedly complained that the city is running out of space to bury the 150 people who die every day or 54,000 per year.

In 2005, the city, which has a land area of 65,680 hectares, owns 785 hectares of land designated for cemeteries, of which 575 hectares has been used.

The agency expects that unless serious measures are taken to counter land scarcity problems, the city will run out of burial space by 2015.

If every deceased needs 3.75 square meters burial space, the city needs 202,500 square meters or 20.25 hectares a year. Of 95 cemeteries across the capital, four cemeteries are at capacity including Karet Bivak cemetery in Central Jakarta, which only allows families to bury deceased members in existing graves.

The agency mentioned that if the city provided more space for cemeteries, the city would become a city of the dead. It has developed three options to deal with such spatial constraints — burials in hometowns, cremation or burials in a shared grave.

Only a few are willing to bury the dead in hometowns because of transportation costs, while cremation is not an option for the majority of Muslims.