Massive infrastructure expansion expected in Jakarta within 10 years

Indonesian labourers work at a building under construction in Jakarta on Nov 26, 2018. PHOTO: AFP

JAKARTA (THE JAKARTA POST/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - In an attempt to make Jakarta an efficient city, Indonesia's capital is set to have a massive amount of infrastructure built and expanded within 10 years, Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan has said.

The idea was discussed and agreed to during a meeting on Monday (Jan 28) hosted by Vice President Jusuf Kalla for several other officials, including the governors of Jakarta and Banten, the deputy mayor of West Java and the finance minister.

Anies explained that the budget for the decade-long project, which he said might amount to 605 trillion rupiah (US$58 billion), would be financed by the central government and the city administration.

"If we want to be an efficient city, we would need Transjakarta to span 2,149km," he said referring to the capital city's bus rapid transit system. "Today we have just 1,100 km, which means additional buses are required," he told the press briefing on Monday.

"The light rapid transit (LRT) system is now only 5.8km long; we need it to be more than 130km long. The MRT is now about 16km long and it has to be built to be 112km long," he added.

Mr Anies said there also had to be more than 20,000 public minivans to serve smaller areas.

He added that the city would have to build 600,000 housing units. It would also have to ensure that 100 per cent of the city would have a clean water supply, with more than 50 per cent of it having access to a wastewater service within the same length of time.

The governor said he had expected to prepare the budget and funding plans within a month with the relevant government ministries. "(The infrastructure expansion) starts with Jakarta, then would extend to other regions," he said.

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