Eastern canal project to start soon

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