Buaran II water treatment plant to operate soon

JAKARTA (JP): The city-owned water company PAM Jaya will soon operate a new water processing plant -- Buaran II -- with a production capacity of 3,000 liters per second in Kalimalang, East Jakarta.

Bambang Suranto, a director of the company, said yesterday that the operation of Buaran II, to begin later this month, is expected to raise the company's total water production capacity to 15,235 liters per second.

The operation of the new plant will enable the company to supply clean water to more customers in Tanjung Priok, Kelapa Gading, Cilincing and Koja in North Jakarta; Pulo Gadung and Duren Sawit in East Jakarta; and Kemayoran, Sawah Besar and Senen in Central Jakarta, Bambang said.

With the company's current production capacity of 12,235 liters per second from its 12 water processing plants located in the city's five mayoralties, the firm is capable of serving only 44 percent of the city's population of about nine million, he said.

"The number of the company's water consumers reaches 356,350 families, who are served by 27 office units located in several districts throughout the city," he said.

He acknowledged that the company's service is still poor, especially in North Jakarta.

He said that poor service is caused mainly by the limited availability of funds for the renovation of pipe networks and for the expansion of the production capacity.

"I apologize to the public for the poor service of PAM Jaya. We are striving to improve the service in future," he said, adding that the operation of Buaran II plant is expected to alleviate the acute water shortage in North Jakarta.

Bambang also promised to reduce the high level of water leakage, which now reaches 45.13 percent of the company's total water production due to old pipe networks and water pilferage.

Besides renovating the old pipe networks in stages, the company has also set up several teams in charge of fighting against pilferage, he said.

He said that the total fund needed to renovate the old pipes is estimated at Rp 450 billion (US$204,54 million), which is expected to come from offshore loans.

The Buaran II water processing plant, the construction of which started in 1992, is part of the Buaran water processing complex, which includes the Buaran I plant which was completed in February last year, he said.

He said that Buaran II was built at a cost of Rp 297.3 billion. (32)