Eastern canal project to start soon

JAKARTA: The construction project for the East Flood Canal, delayed for 30 years, will commence in Marunda and Rorotan subdistricts, Cilincing, North Jakarta.

According to head of the city public works agency IGKG Suena, some 80 percent of the land for the construction in the two districts has been cleared by the city administration.

"There is no problem with land clearance in the north, therefore the project will start from the north," Suena was quoted by Beritajakarta.com as saying last Saturday.

He added that the administration had managed to clear only 12.5 hectares of the 250 hectares of land needed for the project. The 23-kilometer project will cost in total about Rp 4 trillion, and is due to be completed in five years' to 10 years' time.

A feasibility study for the East Flood canal was carried out in the early 1970s when, in 1976, the government hired an Amsterdam-based consulting group, Nedeco, to design the canal.

The East Flood Canal is part of the government's plan to build a semicircular canal along the northern part of the city, which will receive the water from the city's 13 rivers, which originate in the highlands of Bogor and Depok in West Java and flow into the Java Sea off North Jakarta.

The other part is the 14-kilometer West Flood Canal, which was constructed in 1924 by the Dutch colonial government. The canal also needs to be upgraded as it has filled up with silt. --JP