According to agency head Asep Kuswanto, the city has 31 monitoring stations across its five municipalities, including one at the Hotel Indonesia roundabout in Central Jakarta, the Kelapa Gading and Penjaringan stations in North Jakarta, the Cilangkap monitoring station in East Jakarta and one at Kota Tua in West Jakarta.

While he did not specify how many stations had been newly installed, Asep said the agency would continue to expand the number of air quality monitoring stations to identify the main sources of the city’s pollution to help authorities take more effective measures.

“We are optimistic that we can continue to improve the air quality for the residents’ well-being,” Asep said on Wednesday, as quoted by Antara.

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He also encouraged Jakarta residents to help improve the air quality by using public transportation and avoiding open waste burning, among other individual efforts.

“We continue to tighten oversight and law enforcement for industries as well as restricting vehicles through the odd-even [license plate] policy,” Asep said, adding that the city would continue mandatory emissions testing for private vehicles and cloud seeding to manage air pollution.

Despite authorities’ efforts to control air pollution, Jakarta ranked among the world’s top 10 polluted cities last week on the index of Swiss air quality technology company IQAir.

Acting Jakarta governor Heru Budi Hartono dismissed concerns over the city’s worsening air quality, saying that “everywhere in the world is polluted”. (alf)