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akarta Governor Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo revealed on Friday that he would meet Banten Deputy Governor Rano Karno on Saturday to seek the latter'€™s support for the construction of a big tunnel connecting the Ciliwung River in Jakarta with Tangerang'€™s Cisadane River.

He declined to give the location of the meeting, but he said he was optimistic that Rano would listen and eventually support the plan since the two were both members of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

Jokowi, who has been working to tackle the problem of annual flooding in the city, said Banten officials had opposed the tunnel project mainly because they had yet to fully understand the details.

'€œIf Banten Deputy Governor Rano Karno and the Tangerang regent and mayor and I have a face-to-face meeting tomorrow, they will likely approve the plan,'€ he said.

The big tunnel'€™s construction '€” which would reroute flow from the Ciliwung River to the Cisadane River during the rainy season '€” was put forth in a meeting with Jokowi, the Bekasi regent, the Bogor regent and mayor and officials from the Public Works Ministry, held in Katulampa, Bogor, on Monday. Though invited, Rano and the Tangerang regent and mayor did not show, as the deputy governor had to attend a plenary session with the provincial legislative council in Serang.

The proposal has been firmly opposed by the Banten officials, who have said the big tunnel would not solve the core problem and would only relocate flooding from Jakarta to Tangerang.

Rano said during a field visit to the Cisadane River in Tangerang on Wednesday that if the tunnel was constructed, the river would overflow and trigger floods that would submerge four districts in Tangerang regency and municipality.

Meanwhile in a discussion in Tangerang on Friday, several Tangerang officials and ex-officials reiterated that the people in Tangerang would never support the project.

Former Tangerang mayor Wahidin Halim said the central government should dredge the Cisadane before talking about building the tunnel.

He said that the idea had been raised back in the 1970s, but it was rejected by the Tangerang regency administration. '€œThe people of Tangerang will likely sue the officials if they approve the project,'€ he said.

The head of Tangerang regency'€™s Development Planning Agency (Bappeda), Herry Heryanto, said that thousands of people in 42 villages would suffer if the project was carried out.

Yayat Supriatna, a public policy analyst at Trisakti University in West Jakarta, said the regions should defer to the central government'€™s Public Works Ministry on whether to dredge the Cisadane River and construct a tunnel connecting it to the Ciliwung.

'€œThe ministry has the authority and competence, including qualified experts to persuade all officials and conflicting regions whether the dredging and the big tunnel are needed or not,'€ he said.

According to Yayat, not many people understood the precise details of the tunnel project.

He said the tunnel would be deemed viable only if it helped both Jakarta and Banten.

In a recent seminar organized by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), experts with LIPI said that the proposed construction of a big tunnel connecting the two rivers would be a short-term solution to Jakarta'€™s annual flooding.

They also said that in addition to the government, other stakeholders, namely the public and the private sector, should play an active role in helping to mitigate flooding.