T

he Transportation Ministry in June will begin construction of the long-awaited Trans-Sulawesi railway connecting Makassar and Pare-Pare in South Sulawesi.

The Rp 9 trillion (US$786 million) project will kick off with Rp 1 trillion in its initial phase.

The ministry'€™s director general for railway affairs, Hermanto Dwiatmoko, said the 150-kilometer-long pioneering railway would start in Baru regency.

'€œTo begin, the provincial administration has acquired land for 30 km of railway tracks. We are planning to initially allocate Rp 1 trillion solely to construct the tracks,'€ Hermanto told reporters in a media briefing on Thursday.

Hermanto said that the initial budget would be used to construct a single track, even though the designated land had been prepared for double tracks.

'€œThe total budget needed to operate the railway is Rp 9 trillion, including to build train stations, provide the train cars and other supporting facilities,'€ he said.

According to Hermanto, Baru regency is located near state company PT Semen Tonasa'€™s cement factory and the railway tracks would initially serve logistics transport.

'€œWith the new railway tracks, we are targeting to cater to the logistics transportation needs of firms in the region, including Semen Tonasa and Bosowa Corporation, which is based in Sulawesi,'€ he said.

Hermanto also said that this year, the ministry would also prepare the feasibility study to construct railway tracks connecting Manado and Bitung in North Sulawesi.

Separately, director of train transportation and traffic at the ministry, Hanggoro Budi Wiryawan, said
that the 2014 state budget had not allocated funds for the railway project.

'€œWe are currently revising our budget so that we can speed up construction and begin in June,'€ Hanggoro said, citing that the railway project is targeted to fully start operations within five years. '€œWe have also started preparations to assign the operator that will run the railway track, human resources and the long-term vision of Trans-Sulawesi,'€ he said.

Hanggoro said that the railway would be fully funded by the state budget to further accelerate its construction.

'€œIf we seek loans from foreign investors, it would take longer to begin,'€ he said.

This year, the ministry has also allocated Rp 200 billion to reactivate several defunct railways to increase the amount of supplies transported by train.

According to the ministry, around 2,000 km of railway out of the existing 6,000 km in the country are not in operation, as residential developments have been built over the tracks.

The ministry is also preparing to adopt Japan'€™s Shinkansen high-speed rail to connect Jakarta and Bandung, a distance of 150 kilometers, in less than one hour. The high-speed rail is targeted to begin construction in 2016 and will be ready to operate by 2020.