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High-speed rail land acquisition to be settled in March
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Breaking ground: President Joko Widodo (right, in white helmet) inspects a construction site in Cikalong Wetan, West Java, for the high-speed railway that will connect Jakarta to Bandung during the groundbreaking ceremony on Jan. 21, 2016. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)
T
he Finance Ministry has said land acquisition for the 140-kilometer Jakarta-Bandung high-speed train will be completed next month, after it had appraised the value of the land.
The infrastructure project, which broke ground in a January 2016 ceremony led by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, has met with long delays caused by difficulties in acquiring land.
According to the tempo.co report, Deputy Finance Minister Mardiasmo said in Jakarta on Thursday that the appraisal was necessary to settle the acquisition of three plots of land that had been blamed for stalling the project.
He was referring to land in the Halim area of East Jakarta, the land owned by the Public Works and Housing Ministry and a plot that was under a land swap scheme in Cimahi, West Java.
Mardiasmo said the Finance Ministry’s State Assets Directorate General (DJKN) was tasked with settling the acquisition of the three plots “The DJKN will appraise the value of each plot,” he said.
Land acquisition has been the main issue in moving the project forward, with only 54 percent of the land cleared for the project.
In early January, the government said the Chinese consortium backing the project had stopped fund disbursements because of unsettled issues over land acquisition for the project, which was initially scheduled for completion in 2019.
President Jokowi had even called for the project's reevaluation, particularly on whether an HSR service was needed to connect the two cities that were separated by only 240 kilometers. (bbn)
