T

he ground-breaking ceremony of the first stretch of the long-awaited 2,700-kilometer Trans Sumatra toll road, which will connect major cities from Aceh to Lampung, was held on Friday, as the outgoing administration speeds up crucial projects that will have a multiplier effect on the country'€™s economy.

The construction of the mega toll-road project will begin in December with work undertaken on the first section, which will span 15.8 km from Medan to Binjai in North Sumatra and will cost Rp 1.6 trillion (US$130.9 million), according to Coordinating Economic Minister Chairul Tanjung. The first section is due to be operational in three years.

The second stage of construction of the total 24 sections will stretch 22 km from Palembang to Indralaya in South Sumatra, requiring Rp 3.6 trillion.

'€œI want these [two sections] to be constructed in advance ['€¦] while the third and fourth sections can be done later,'€ Chairul said Friday, with reference to the Pekanbaru-Dumai and Bakauheni-Terbanggi sections, which will cost Rp 14.2 trillion and Rp 16.9 trillion, respectively.

The Office of the Coordinating Economic Minister has said that it is moving to fast-track 15 priority infrastructure projects for ground breaking or completion this year, including the 39-km Manado-Bitung toll road in North Sulawesi, which broke ground on Sunday; the expansion of Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Banten, and the completion of the Rp 4 trillion Jatigede Dam in Sumedang, West Java.

Sumatra provides key commodities for export and the domestic market, including palm oil, coffee, rubber, coal, tin and oil and gas.

The westernmost island in the archipelago is also home to two of the country'€™s most important ports for commodity exports, namely Belawan Port in North Sumatra and Dumai Port in Riau.

The Trans Sumatra toll road is expected to reduce distribution costs within the island and, as a consequence, drive down prices and make the goods more competitive, but the project has been delayed for years, primarily due to land-acquisition problems.

State-owned construction firm Hutama Karya, which has been assigned to work on the first two segments of the toll road, is still engaged in trying to acquire sufficient land. To construct the entire road, the government needs to acquire 218,976 million square meters of land.

Hutama Karya is also awaiting approval from the State-Owned Enterprises Ministry to take over land belonging to state-owned plantation company PT Perkebunan Nusantara VII, which controls 70 percent of the land earmarked for the first section of the road.

'€œI don'€™t think there will be any problem [in providing land for the second section] because the State-Owned Enterprises Ministry is the initiator of this project,'€ Chairul said as reported by local media.

'€œBut the remaining 30 percent of land required for the first section belongs to local residents. Thus, Hutama Karya has entrusted the North Sumatra administration with acquiring the land,'€ Hutama Karya president director I Gusti Ngurah Putra said.

'€œIf it becomes an ongoing challenge, then we could just build an overpass,'€ he added.

Deputy Public Works Minister Hermanto Dardak said the toll road would play an important role in boosting Sumatra'€™s economy, adding that it would be connected to the new Kuala Namu International Airport in Medan and the Tebing Tinggi toll road, which is currently under construction. (nad)