Airport to be built on Bawean island
Airport to be built on Bawean island
ID Nugroho, Surabaya
Saif Bakham, a prominent figure on Bawean Island, was amazed when
told an airport would be built connecting his home with the
mainland.
His forehead wrinkled. "Is this really true? An airport? Built
here on Bawean?" the 57-year-old Bawean resident asked The
Jakarta Post on Friday. "Then their obsession is finally being
realized," he said darkly.
Bawean island lies 150 kilometers north of East Java in the
Gresik regency and has 60,000 people.
Gresik's Planning Board head Sarwadi says his administration
plans to build an airport on one of the cliffs near Tanjungori in
Tambak, in the next few years.
"If all runs smoothly, the airport will start operations in
2007," he said.
The administration is preparing a 70-hectare plot of land for
the airport, which will have a 900-meter runway. Only light
aircraft will be able to land and take off.
The idea originated during a meeting between Malaysian and
Singaporean businessmen and East Java Governor Imam Oetomo last
year. At the meeting, the businessmen explained how much longer
it took to travel from Surabaya to Bawean, compared with the time
to travel by plane from Singapore to Surabaya.
"They said: 'Why don't you just build an airport on Bawean, it
would be a lot faster'," administration spokesman Suprawoto said.
A feasibility study was then conducted by a team from
Surabaya's Institute of Technology in January last year.
It was expected the airport would help open up Bawean as a
tourist destination and would encourage growth in horticulture
and fisheries.
Bawean has many potential tourist attractions. Beautiful coral
reefs ring the island -- especially on the beaches of Mayangkara
near Kapuhteluk and around the smaller neighboring islands of
Nusa, Cina, Karabile, East Gili and West Gili.
The island also has the Kastoba crater lake and several hot
water springs. In the Kebuntelukdalam neighborhood there are also
several scenic waterfalls.
Traveling by air, it would only take 15 minutes flying from
Surabaya to get to the island. It usually takes three to 10 hours
by sea from the port of Gresik on a passenger ferry.
Saif, however, was far from optimistic about the airport,
which he said would only bring new problems. The money on the
airport would be better off spent fixing existing infrastructure
and shortages, he said.
He pointed to the construction of the grand fish landing
harbor in Tanjungori. Conceived as a fishing port, it was
supposed to become a fish trading center for fishermen in Bawean.
"Where are the results? From its inauguration in the mid-1990s
until now it has remained empty," he said.
Another urgent matter was the scarcity of fuel and
electricity, which only met the needs of 10 out of the 30
villages on the island. "Not to mention the few paved roads, left
over from the Dutch era," he said.
Many of the island's inhabitants were traditionally fisher
folk. Now they were working in Singapore and Malaysia because of
the poor job prospects at home. In Singapore, many worked in the
informal sector -- as parking attendants and construction
laborers -- sending part of their wages back home.
"The people cultivating the rice fields and trading on Bawean
are people from Java," Saif said.
Native Baweans also had little to do with development of the
promising onyx stone quarry or tourism on the island.
Bawean, with its scattered hills, cliffs and its white
beaches, could be as big a tourist spot as Bali, he said.
Local government had done little to encourage this industry,
however. "Even with the (island's) jetfoil boat -- before that
stopped service in middle of last year -- not a single tourist
has visited Bawean because of the lack of serious promotion," he
said.
Without an integrated approach to development on the island,
an airport would be just another failed experiment, he said.