House wants change in status of Planetarium
House wants change in status of Planetarium
JAKARTA (JP): Members of the House of the Representatives
(DPR) have urged the government to immediately change the status
of the Jakarta Planetarium and Observatory from a non-structural
body to an official structural one.
The deputy chairman of the House's Commission X, H. Alie
Meilana, said during a visit to the observatory on Thursday that
the present non-structural status has hampered the ability of the
observatory's management board to improve its conditions.
A non-structural government body has the same operational
working requirements as an official structural body, but the
differences are that a non-structural body's employees have lower
ranks and salaries than those who work for an official structural
office.
These deficiencies constitute psychological barriers which
result in the observatory's employees not always putting forth
their best effort.
According to Meilana, the change in status will enable the
observatory to play a greater role in promoting astronomy and
interplanetary sciences to support the nation's development.
Meilana hoped that the change in status will certainly improve
the performances of the observatory's employees.
"The employees of the observatory should be regarded as a
national asset because in the near future we will need many well-
trained astronomy experts," he said.
The planetarium was inaugurated by the late President Sukarno
in 1964. The observatory's supervision was transferred to the
city administration in 1968, but in 1984, the governor decided to
set up an organizing board to take care of the observatory. The
board is a non-structural body operating under the supervision of
the provincial secretariat (Sekwilda).
The Antara news agency reported that during the visit, another
member of the commission, Oelfah A.S. Harmanto, said the
management board of the observatory should work to make the place
popular to the general public because the number of people
visiting it decreased last year.
The board's chairman said the change in status will also
enable the observatory to modernize its equipment.
The observatory is open six days a week, from Tuesday to
Sunday and the entrance fee ranges from Rp 400 to Rp 1,500. (03)