Clean water still a luxury for many Jakartans
Clean water still a luxury for many Jakartans
Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
For Lieswati, 27, clean water is truly a luxury as every night
she must stay up to fill several buckets and a bath tub with
water for the family's daily needs due to the poor tap water
supply.
"The flow is abysmal during the day as a result of the low
pressure. The pressure only gets better at night -- until about 6
a.m.," said the resident of a crowded area in Kota, West Jakarta.
Lieswati grumbled that sometimes the water was cut off,
forcing her to spend more money on buying water from a pushcart
water vendor.
"Last week, for instance, the water was off all day long. I
had to spend more than Rp 7,000 (85 U.S. cents) on a couple of
buckets of water I bought from the water vendor," she complained.
According to Lieswati, residents in her neighborhood have no
other option but to rely on the poor tap water service.
"We simply cannot use ground water as the wells are highly
polluted as a result of being too close to the septic tanks,"
explained Lieswati.
Meanwhile, Anwar S, 30, a resident of Halim, East Jakarta, who
also complained about the poor tap water service, is able to use
ground water.
"But, I have to pay more for the electricity used by the water
jet pump, which is much higher than the water charges," said
Anwar.
Before using the pump, Anwar used to pay Rp 40,000 on water
charges and Rp 70,000 on electricity, but since he started using
the pump, he has to pay Rp 15,000 for the water and Rp 120,000
for the electricity.
Worse still, Anwar said, the tap water quality was getting
worse, and the water had a bad smell.
"I am considering purchasing bottled water for cooking and
drinking purposes," said Anwar.
Some residents of Cempaka Putih, Central Jakarta, and Kayu
Manis and Rawabunga, Jatinegara, both in East Jakarta, also
expressed similar complaints.
Problems with tap water supply and quality are old ones for
Jakartans. The management of piped water supplies here has been
delegated to two private sector firms, Thames Pam Jaya and PT Pam
Lyonnaise Jaya, since February, 1998, after it was taken out of
the hands of the reportedly corruption-riddled state-owned
enterprise, PAM Jaya. TPJ, which is a subsidiary of Britain's
Thames Water International, serves customers to the east of the
Ciliwung River, while Palyja, a subsidiary of France's ONDEO
(formerly Lyonnaise des Eaux), serves customers to the west of
the river.
Last April, tap water charges were increased by some 40
percent, but many still complain about poor service.
Palyja's spokeswoman, Maria Sidabutar, explained that her
company had gathered together customers in four areas of the
city, Central Jakarta, West Jakarta, North Jakarta and South
Jakarta, following the water charge increases.
"We met with them (the customers) to listen to their
complaints and suggestions so that we can improve our service,"
said Maria.
Maria blamed the poor tap water quality on the low quality of
the unprocessed water from the Jati Luhur reservoir in West Java,
coupled with the decrepit pipe network.
According to Maria, Palyja had invested Rp 644 billion as of
March last year on, among other things, replacing old pipes (490
kilometers out of 4,100 kilometers of old pipe), and expanding
the network (780 kilometers).
"Palyja estimates that more than Rp 1.2 trillion will be
needed to improve the water supply over the next five years,"
said Maria.