Bekasi dressing up to be modern metropolis<\/p>\n
By Kosasih Derajat<\/p>\n
BEKASI, West Java (JP): Bekasi, a suburban area east of
\nJakarta, celebrated its 46th anniversary yesterday. Malls,
\nhousing areas and industrial sites abound but the administration
\nstill has to cope with 23 of the 237 villages being categorized
\nas below the poverty line .<\/p>\n
According to official reports, Bekasi, originally called the
\nJatinegara regency, came into being on Aug. 15, 1950.<\/p>\n
The historian Poerbatjaraka traces the regency's embryo to the
\nTarumanegara kingdom, established by King Purnawarman around the
\nyear 450.<\/p>\n
Bekasi has long been a popular name, even before it was
\ninaugurated as a regency. It was the site of various military
\nencounters during the struggle for independence, most of which
\nare commemorated in the poem Antara Kerawang-Bekasi by the late
\nChairil Anwar in the 1940s.<\/p>\n
Fifty years later Bekasi makes the headlines for its
\nrobberies, murders and sexual assaults.<\/p>\n
A gang of criminals robbed Acan, a 45-year-old farmer, and
\nraped his wife and two daughters, aged 14 and 15, in front of him
\nlast July.<\/p>\n
The trauma was barely over when a similar robbery and sexual
\nassault struck another farmer, Yanto, in January and February.<\/p>\n
While sociologists said it was the social gap that provoked
\nthe series of crimes, police officials and city authorities point
\nto the lack of infrastructure in far-flung areas of the regency
\nwhich is more than four times the size of the capital.<\/p>\n
Police resources are also limited, said Lt. Col. Elfrizo
\nTobing, the former Bekasi Police Chief.<\/p>\n
Bekasi, designed as a buffer zone for the capital city, covers
\n148,437 hectares and has a current population of 2.8 million.<\/p>\n
The regency has to provide 6,000 hectares of land for scores
\nof factories owned by both global and national corporations.
\nThere are currently more than 14 industrial estates in the
\nregency housing about 700 manufacturing companies.<\/p>\n
Bekasi is also assigned by the West Java provincial
\nadministration to provide tens of thousands of hectares for
\nhousing and real estate for people earning their living in
\nJakarta.<\/p>\n
The local administration stated that presently there are 340
\nconstruction developers working to build 750,000 houses on 22,000
\nhectares.<\/p>\n
The establishment of industrial and real estates has
\ncontributed to the local economic growth.<\/p>\n
"Realization of the original local revenues within the last
\nfive years has always been 27 percent higher than the targets,"
\nhead of the regency's public relations department Atang Sudjana,
\ntold The Jakarta Post yesterday.<\/p>\n
He added that the original local revenues contributed more
\nthan 56 percent of the regency's annual budget.<\/p>\n
He said the local budget for the 1996\/1997 fiscal year
\nincreased by 12 percent to Rp 103 billion (US$43.8 million), from
\nRp 90,837 billion the previous year.<\/p>\n
Bekasi's impressive growth has, in the last 10 years, compared
\nfavorably with the neighboring regencies of Bogor and Tangerang
\nin West Java.<\/p>\n
But Suganda, 60, an informal leader of Kebalen village, does
\nnot appear to be proud to be a resident of the rapidly expanding
\nregency.<\/p>\n
He now lives with his two wives and 10 children behind a
\nprivate bank which stands on a plot which was formerly his.<\/p>\n
"I had to sell my building and land to feed my family," he
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
He added that one day he might sell all his property. His
\nfarm land has also been sold.<\/p>\n
He was one of those who became instantly rich as he sold when
\nland was being bought up by housing and factory developers -- but
\nlike several of his neighbors, the money quickly disappeared in
\nthe quest for a comfortable standard of living.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/bekasi-dressing-up-to-be-modern-metropolis-1447899208",
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