Green NGO urges city to draw up plan to effectively control air pollution

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The city administration has been urged to prepare a concrete action plan to make Bylaw No. 2/2005 on air pollution control enforceable.

The bylaw, which will take effect early next year, bans, among other things, smoking in enclosed public places and requires public transportation vehicles to use compressed natural gas (CNG).

Chairman of the Partnership for Clean Emission (MEB) Fransiscus Suseno said on Tuesday that the action plan should consist of a detailed plan for the implementation of all rulings stipulated in the bylaw.

"Without any concrete action plan, the bylaw would not be enforceable," Suseno said at a ceremony to commemorate Earth Day.

He said drafting an action plan was the first step to following up the bylaw, which was enacted in February, before the administration held public campaigns about its policy to clean up the city's air.

In an effort to clean up Jakarta's air, which is the third worst in the world after Mexico City and Bangkok, the bylaw requires, among other things, vehicular emission checks for all vehicles and the use of CNG for all public vehicles.

Although the bylaw will become effective in February next year, the administration has not done nothing to prepare for it, such arranged to have public vehicles converted for CNG use.

Only five gas stations sell CNG in the city, while the total number of public transportation vehicles stands at around 83,000.

The city administration, state oil and gas company Pertamina, and state gas distributor PT Perusahan Gas Negara signed a memorandum of understanding on gas supply for public vehicles early this month.

The administration has focused on establishing one CNG station on Jl. Daan Mogot, West Jakarta, and another on Jl. Perintis Kemerdekaan, East Jakarta, to supply some 200 buses to be operated along the second and third busway corridors.

MEB secretary-general Ahmad Syafrudin expressed disappointment on Tuesday that the city administration had not followed up adequately on the bylaw.

"We are really worried the bylaw will become a paper tiger that will not be applicable to cleaning up the city's air," he said.

He added that the bylaw on air pollution control should not be viewed as a burden on the city to clean up the air, but as a long-term business opportunity.

The opening of new CNG stations, according to Ahmad, is a lucrative business in the long term as long as public transportation vehicles are required to use CNG.

"I think investors would be interested in opening gas stations if the administration remains consistent about its CNG policy," he said, adding that for the first step, the administration needed to offer incentives to investors, such as a tax holiday.

Meanwhile, City Land Transportation Agency head Rustam Effendy Sidabutar admitted that the city was not ready to implement the bylaw next year.