Wahyu Utomo, who chairs the Committee for the Acceleration of Priority Infrastructure Delivery (KPPIP), told The Jakarta Post that the agency had received a proposal from the Transportation Ministry to remove the project from the PSN.

“Because it won’t be finished in 2024,” said Wahyu on Wednesday about the reason behind the decision.

Read also: RI to bring in Chinese staff in rush to launch high speed rail link

However, being taken out of the PSN does not automatically translate to its cancelation, he said, adding that the project was still under technical and financial review.

Ultimately, it will be up to President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo whether it will be canceled altogether after being dethroned from the strategic lists, he said, adding that it would be decided in a meeting with President Jokowi at the State Palace next week.

The PSN is a set of national projects that are deemed to have strategic value for the country, with the authorities accelerating their completion through a wide range of facilities, such as eased land clearing and permits.

Most of the projects’ deadlines were set for 2024 or sooner, with the government removing those that cannot meet the due date from the list, thus disqualifying them from prioritization.

Indonesia is planning two rail-link projects connecting Jakarta and Surabaya.

One has been proposed to China as an extension of the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway (HSR) project connecting Surakarta in Central Java and Yogyakarta on the southern line.

The other is a semi-HSR that the government proposed to Japan to connect Jakarta and Surabaya via Semarang on the northern line.

However, asked which the government meant to be written off from the lists, Wahyu said it had not been decided yet.

“The decision of it being a high-speed railway, or semi-high-speed [hasn’t been made yet],” Wahyu told reporters separately on Wednesday, as quoted from Tempo.co.

Presidential regulation No. 109/2020 on the PSN also only names the project the Jakarta-Surabaya railway, without referencing the southern or northern route.

Read also: Government plans to extend high-speed rail to Surabaya via Yogyakarta

However, the government has maintained that the Jakarta-Bandung HSR project must be extended to Surabaya, citing that a longer route was needed to make the project more economically viable.

President Jokowi has asked his aides to extend the HSR to Surabaya since 2020. On June 25, Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Pandjaitan reiterated that the extension was needed.

The government is set to begin a free trial of the Jakarta-Bandung HSR for the general public for three months after the President inaugurated the project on Aug. 18.

Just three weeks before the free trial, the Transportation Ministry on Wednesday started a series of tests before it issues the commissioning certificates for the project to begin operation commercially, which includes a safety inspection.