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and transportation serving inter-city routes in Java as well as inter-island may stop operating due to scarcity in diesel fuel as a result of the government’s diesel fuel restriction policy.

Indonesian Young Bus Employers (IPOMI) chairman Kurnia Lesani Adnan said that many bus operators preferred to stop operations as continuing could end up in hours of delays.

“The drivers have spent most of their time queuing in gas stations to buy diesel fuel, causing them to experience delays of up to five hours [from the scheduled time],” Kurnia told The Jakarta Post on the phone on Wednesday.

He believed that if the government insisted on decreasing the fuel subsidy by 13 percent for the 2013 state budget, thousands of buses would be sent to garages. He suggested that the government instead maintained the diesel supply by raising its price rather than restricting the supply.

“We have been calling for the government to raise it according to the market price of around Rp 6,500 per liter [65 US cents] from currently Rp 4,500,” he said, adding that the increase in the diesel fuel price would not automatically increase public transport tickets.

At the same time, the government could spend the difference in revenue to repair damage to infrastructure.

The same suggestion was also made by Land Transportation Owners Organization’s (Organda) Yogyakarta chapter. The chapter’s chairman, Johny Pramantya Sunu, said that increasing the price would secure the fuel supply.

The same impact from the scarcity of diesel fuel had been experienced by truck drivers and fishermen in Central Java.

“I don’t know if I will be able to go to the sea tomorrow. It’s really difficult to find diesel fuel nowadays,” fisherman Suparto of Kendal, Central Java, said.

Many gas stations in Semarang were seen placing signs saying “Diesel fuel out of supply”, forcing truck drivers in the provincial capital to spend a night at the station to get diesel fuel when the state-owned oil and gas company Pertamina’s tank trucks delivered the fuel.

Pertamina’s Central Java and Yogyakarta marketing office’s external relations officer Heppy Wulansari said that the scarcity was due to the decrease in the quota. The government decided that the diesel fuel quota for the region was 1.9 million kiloliters or 4 percent less than that of last year.

At the same time, she said, there had been a 13 percent increase in diesel fuel consumption growth in the two neighboring provinces. “In principle, we are still distributing diesel fuel every day but the volume is limited,” Heppy said.

To help maintain supply, she added, Pertamina would increase the supply of nonsubsidized diesel fuel or Pertamina Dex in all regencies and municipalities.

At present, she said, of the total 707 gas stations in the region, 50 offer nonsubsidized diesel fuel and 380 sell Pertamina Dex.