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)