Surabaya, East Java, and Surakarta, Central
Java, are the two cities with the cleanest air in Indonesia, the Environment
Ministry announced on Wednesday.
The two cities beat 24 other cities in the
ministry’s Langit Biru (Blue Sky)
program, which rated cities’ air quality based on four main considerations.
“The four main parameters were traffic
management, the quality of fuel, the result of vehicle emission examination and
the air quality on the main roads of each city,” deputy minister for
environment pollution control MR Karliansyah said, as quoted by kompas.com.
Other additional parameters, she said, were
the efforts of local administrations to reduce emissions and the urban planning
of respective cities.
The ministry divided the 26 cities into the
two categories of “metropolitan” and “big city”, each consisting of 14 and 12
cities, respectively.
Surabaya, scoring a cumulative index point
of 7.21, was chosen as the city with the best air quality in the metropolitan
category, followed by Medan, North Sumatra, in second and East Jakarta in
third.
The big city category saw Surakarta coming
out on top with a score of 8.42, beating second place Batam, Riau Islands, and
third place Malang, East Java.
In the overall standings, the top three
cities with the best air quality were Surakarta, Batam and Malang, while the
bottom three spots were occupied by Semarang, Bekasi and West Jakarta.
Environment Minister Balthazar Kambuaya said that the
program was considered a free promotion for cities and was hoped to push local
administrations, companies and the general public to care for the air in their
respective cities. (awd)
