Gandhi school executives to be summoned over parking

JAKARTA (JP): The city will summon administrators of the Gandhi Memorial International School in North Jakarta following complaints from local residents about chronic traffic congestion caused by students parking on surrounding streets, an official said on Monday.

Head of the city's social disturbance control agency Raya Siahaan said residents suffered the traffic problem for years because some 2,000 cars belonging to the privately owned school's students clogged the streets.

The decision to question school administrators was made after the head of the local Ancol subdistrict Resilience Body (LKMD), Sukirno, together with two neighborhood chiefs visited the city administration on Monday to lodge a complaint.

"The school administrators will be summoned next week to explain the dispute with the residents," Raya said after meeting with the representatives of local residents.

School principal Suresh G. Vaswani is on the list of administrators to be questioned.

The school is located inside the Taman Impian Barat housing complex near the popular Ancol Dreamland in Ancol subdistrict. It is ringed by four streets -- Jl. Pangandaran, Jl. Pangandaran 1, Jl. Parangtritis 6 and Jl. Parangtritis 9.

Sukirno said at least 350 local residents repeatedly complained about persistent traffic snarls on school days.

"We often tried to arrange meetings between the residents and the school's administrators to discuss the matter, but the latter never attended the meetings," he said.

LKMD hired 37 local unemployed youths to organize parking at a vacant lot last April.

"However, it only worked for one month," Sukirno said.

The students, he said, refused to take directions from the parking attendants and instead told their drivers to park the vehicles on the streets.

Early birds

Many residents are forced to leave their homes for work before 6 a.m. in an attempt to beat the traffic jam, Sukirno said.

He added that residents complained that many of the drivers behaved rudely, harassing housemaids and urinating in the neighborhood.

"We have often complained about all of these matters but we are also often terrorized by the drivers."

Another resident who asked for anonymity questioned the validity of the building permit for the three-story school.

He said the school opened in 1985 with only four classrooms and 200 students, but now had more than 100 classrooms and more than 3,000 students.

"We once asked the Ancol authorities about the building permit. The officials there admitted to only issuing a permit for renovation of the school," he said.

Suresh said that he would be ready to explain the matter in detail to the city administration.

He strongly denied the accusations of Sukirno and the other residents.

He accused the residents and LKMD of trying to strong-arm his school and the drivers by closing three of the four access gates of the housing complex's main road.

He said the locals demanded the drivers pay Rp 1,500 before they could pass through the open gate.

"If they don't want traffic jams, just open the other gates," he said.

Suresh denied the school violated its construction permits.

"We have all the permits required," he said. (jun)