T

he Transportation Ministry says it will accelerate construction of the Trans-Java double-track railroad after securing Rp 1.47 trillion (US$160.23million) in additional funds from the state budget.

Ministry railways chief Tundjung Inderawan said that the money would be used to finish the Cirebon- Brebes, Pekalongan-Semarang, Semarang-Bojonegoro and Bojonegoro-Surabaya sections by the end of 2013, a year earlier than expected.

“This funding will help us to finish up to 30 percent of the total construction of the remaining sections by the end of this year,” Tundjung said.

A little more than six percent of the work on the project has been completed to date, mostly along the 62 kilometers of the Cirebon-Brebes section, he added.

Construction of the Trans- Java project between Jakarta and Surabaya, East Java, along the Pantura north coast highway should be finished by December 2013, as Java’s economy relied heavily on that transportation corridor, Tundjung said.

When complete, the double-track system would increase existing capacity from 64 trains to 200 trains per day and would reduce congestions and road damages, he added.

“The Trans-Java double track will also help decrease logistics costs as it increases the transportation of containers.”

He said that the double track would increase container traffic from 5,000 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) a week to 15,000 TEUs a week.

Moreover, people who traveled between Jakarta and Surabaya would only need 8.5 hours to reach their destination after the project was finished, he added.

Currently, people need about 12 hours to travel from Jakarta to Surabaya via express train.

The 727-kilometer railway project, budgeted at Rp 9.8 trillion, is part of the government’s Master Plan for Acceleration and Expansion of Indonesian Economic Growth (MP3EI).

Another railway major transportation project under the aegis of the MP3EI is the 33-kilometer Manggarai–Soekarno-Hatta International Airport railway, currently under evaluation by state infrastructure financing firm PT Sarana Multi Infrastruktur (SMI).

The review is expected to be complete by mid-2012 and would be followed by the tender process.

In total, the budget for transportation projects under the MP3EI is Rp 814 trillion — Rp 326 trillion for railway projects, Rp 339 trillion for roads, Rp 117 trillion for ports and Rp 32 trillion for airports. (nfo)