J

akarta was once said to be following in the footsteps of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, with a planned island group in its bay — but not anymore.

While Dubai has Palm Islands, Jakarta planned to have the Great Garuda that was claimed to be mitigation measures for land subsidence in the capital that reaches an average of 7 centimeters per year.

Apart from the man-made islets, the Great Garuda would also have consisted of seawalls, which were designed to resemble Garuda — a mythological bird and Indonesia’s emblem.

However, the project had been scrapped and will be replaced with “minimalist” mitigation alternatives, said Adang Saf Ahmad, a special staff on development integration to the Public Works and Public Housing Minister.

The mitigation project, officially called the National Capital Integrated Coastal Development (NCICD), is the responsibility of an integrated team from various state institutions, like the Public Works and Public Housing Ministry and Coordinating Ministry for Maritime Affairs, as well as the Jakarta administration.

“If we were to build a home, we wanted to make a minimalist one,” Adang told The Jakarta Post.

“The project’s focal point is to keep Jakarta away from flooding [because of land subsidence] and that is what we will focus on.”

The planned change was taken after an instruction from the office of the Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister, which has agreed to provide an injection for the mitigation project through the state budget.

However, Adang claimed that he did not know about the funding scheme, as well as the amount.

Previously, he explained, the office of Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister demanded that the mitigation project must use “zero percent from the state budget.”

With the current decision, the mitigation measures will be divided into two schemes — called no-regret measures and conditional measures — at a lower cost.

The no-regret measures have been ongoing with 20.1 kilometers of coastal and river embankments currently being built in critical flood-prone areas, mostly in northern Jakarta.

The ministry is building 4.8 km of coastal embankments along the Muara Baru and Kali Baru shores in North Jakarta.

Aside from the development of river and coastal embankments, which by 2025 is expected to cover 120 km in the capital, the no-regret measures also consist of strategies on the restriction of deep-ground water extraction and the establishment sewerage system.

The two later strategies need respectively Rp 42.1 trillion and Rp 94.7 trillion — higher than the embankment project at Rp 28.8 trillion.

“Many big properties, like malls and hotels, take water from deep ground. This has made Jakarta’s subsidence worse. Hence, we need to provide clean water while we are restricting the extraction,” said Adang.

The no-regret measures will be evaluated in 2022 to see whether it has succeeded in halting the subsidence.

Should it fail the target, he explained, the team will proceed with the conditional measures of building the sea wall, estimated to cost Rp 99 trillion.

“The conditional measures will be funded by the central government and the Jakarta administration. However, if reclamation project continues, we expect the developers will also contribute to the funding,” said Adang, referring to Jakarta Bay reclamation project which is currently in controversy due to its tangling regulations.

He explained that once needed, the seawall was to be built some kilometers away at the front of reclamation islets.

Last Friday, National Development Planning Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro and Jakarta Deputy Governor Sandiaga Uno visited the Muara Baru coast embankment project.

In the occasion, Sandiaga expressed that the administration would take part in the sewerage sytem establishment through its sewage company PD PAL Jaya.

He then urged the company to finance the development of the system across the city through the government-to-business cooperation (KPBU).

The sewerage system establishment needed to be financed not only by the central government and the city administration, but also private parties, he said.

The president director of the sewage company PD Pal Jaya, Subekti, said the company would look for private parties to finance the development of sewage system in seven areas across the city.

“We hope that in 2030 the project could be completed,” he said.

Previously, the company received loan of Rp 8.1 trillion from Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to develop sewage system in Zone 1, stretching from Menteng in Central Jakarta to Pluit in North Jakarta, and Zone 6, stretching from Slipi and Duri Kosambi in West Jakarta.

The development of the system in both areas is set to begin in 2020.