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Jakarta Post

Thousands of households to be evicted

Environmental activists have expressed their opposition to the government’s plan to build a Jakarta-Bandung high-speed rail link, arguing that the project has proceeded without a proper environmental assessment and has put thousands of people on the verge of eviction

Arya Dipa (The Jakarta Post)
Bandung
Mon, January 25, 2016

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Thousands of households to be evicted

E

nvironmental activists have expressed their opposition to the government'€™s plan to build a Jakarta-Bandung high-speed rail link, arguing that the project has proceeded without a proper environmental assessment and has put thousands of people on the verge of eviction.

Speaking to The Jakarta Post over the weekend, Indonesian Forum for the Environment'€™s (Walhi) West Java chapter director Dadan Ramdan emphasized the project'€™s massive and negative impact on the environment.

'€œRice fields, farms and human settlements will be lost. The rivers passed by the railway line will also be prone to damage and pollution,'€ Dadan said.

The ambitious rail project, for which the groundbreaking ceremony was led by President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo last week, will connect the country'€™s capital with West Java'€™s provincial capital via a 142.3-kilometer railway line that will serve four other stations '€” Halim in East Jakarta and Karawang, Walini and Tegalluar in West Java.

From the project'€™s Environmental Impact Analysis (Amdal) documents, a copy of which is kept by Walhi, the Post learned that the US$5.5 billion project, primarily financed by the China Development Bank (CDB), will need to evict more than 2,300 houses and buildings in nine regions to make way for the railway.

According to the documents, the Greater Bandung area '€” which includes Bandung municipality, Bandung regency, West Bandung regency and Cimahi municipality '€” will be the most affected area with 1,224 houses located in the project'€™s construction zone.

Based on the project'€™s feasibility studies, meanwhile, a total of 637.6 hectares of land, including 240 ha of agricultural land, will need to be acquired, partly to build supporting infrastructure for the railway such as roads and railway stations.

The Amdal documents also show that farmland acquisition will deprive 728 farming households of their livelihood.

Walhi activist Meiki W. Paedong, who represented the organization in the project'€™s Amdal commission meeting in Jakarta on Jan. 19, said uncertainty over the project'€™s location had been one of the crucial points of debate during the session, which was led by the Environment and Forestry Ministry'€™s director general of planology, San Afri Awang.

In the meeting, Meiki said he had outlined numerous irregularities regarding the formulation of the Amdal documents.

'€œThe Amdal formulating team also did not involve geologists despite the fact that the railway line passes through unstable soil around Walini,'€ Meiki said.

Considering such irregularities, Dadan said the central government should cancel the project and revoke Presidential Regulation No. 107/2015 on the acceleration of infrastructure for the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed rail project, recently issued to expedite the process.

The government allegedly bypassed existing regulations as it rushed to complete the permits for the project. The railway route permits were issued earlier this month and the Amdal documents were approved just one day before the groundbreaking ceremony.

Separately, Awang acknowledged that spatial plan adjustments by nine regencies and cities affected by the high-speed rail projects were still ongoing.

The ministry, however, does not consider these formal adjustments to be a crucial issue, as Presidential Regulation No. 107/2015 stipulates that regional administrations must prioritize the rail project in their respective spatial plans.

'€œThe regulation has ordered [regional administrations] to immediately adjust their respective spatial plans to make way for the project,'€ he said.

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