City to study monorail proposal

JAKARTA: The city administration plans to carefully study a proposal from a Malaysian firm, M Trans Holding, which expressed its wish to construct a monorail project to help ease the chronic problems of the city transportation.

Assistant to the city secretary for development affairs Irzal Djamal said he expected to receive this weekend the feasibility report, which will become the basis for the issuance of a concession permit to the Indonesian Transit Central (ITC) by Governor Sutiyoso.

ITC is the consortium which will manage the project.

Irzal said that he was tasked by the governor to study the feasibility document to see whether the project could be integrated with the overall plan for the transportation system being developed by the city administration.

"One of the things that is important to us is the price for passengers, and whether the price is feasible for the average Indonesian," Irzal said.

The Malaysian firm is prepared to invest Rp 3.28 trillion (US$400 million) in the first stage of the project, including the construction of stations.

The company plan to construct the monorail connecting Bekasi and Tangerang, passing through the city, including Jl. Casablanca.--JP