T

he Public Works and Public Housing Ministry'€™s flood control office says that the Ciliwung River concrete embankment project in Kampung Pulo, East Jakarta, is 80 percent complete and is likely to be finished in a few days.

The head of the ministry'€™s Ciliwung-Cisadane Flood Control Office (BBWSCC), T. Iskandar, said recently that as most of the concrete embankments had been installed along the river near Kampung Pulo, the office would soon switch its focus to the riverbanks near Bukit Duri in South Jakarta and Bidara Cina in East Jakarta.

'€œIn Bukit Duri area, about 40 percent of the concrete embankments have been installed,'€ Iskandar told The Jakarta Post.

The river '€œnormalization'€ project carried out by the BBWSCC in Ciliwung River is expected to minimize the floods that hit the capital every year. The ongoing project covers the widening of the river, the construction of concrete embankments and the creation of a meander cutoff.

Iskandar said the flood mitigation project will widen the Ciliwung River to a width of 50 meters. Therefore it would able to hold a higher volume of water.

However, he said despite the normalization project, Kampung Pulo was still flooded by the recent rain, but emphasized that the BBWSCC had provided several water pumps to secure the flood-prone area.

Recently, Governor Basuki '€œAhok'€ Tjahaja Purnama said Kampung Pulo was still experiencing floods because the flood mitigation projects had yet to be completed, citing the long process of evicting Kampung Pulo residents as the cause of the delay.

The Jakarta administration has evicted 1,040 families from Kampung Pulo, which led to a clash between the residents and officials, and at least 97 families from Bukit Duri. It planned to evict more from Bidara Cina to make way for the river normalization project.

Hydrogeologist Fatchy Muhammad has criticized the project by saying that there were still a lot of greener and friendlier models of river rehabilitation.

According to him, straightening the water flow of the winding Ciliwung River in Kampung Pulo would only make it more rapid and eventually damage the downstream areas.

'€œThe side effects would be experienced by people who live near the lower part of the Ciliwung River,'€ he said.

Fatchy went on to say the government should consider managing the water catchment in Jakarta so the residents would not suffer a water crisis during drought season. '€œIf the government could make the residents build catchment wells in their homes, not only we would not need a river normalization project, but we will have a good supply of water during the dry season,'€ he said.