Maintenance of parks, greenery top priority

JAKARTA (JP): The city park office said they will make the maintenance of public parks and greeneries alongside major thoroughfares a top priority during the current dry season.

"We have to give top priority to this sector due to the shortage of water trucks," the office's Chief, Syamsir Alam, told The Jakarta Post yesterday.

According to Syamsir, the office's existing 62 water trucks were not enough to water the city's public parks and greeneries which occupy 18,000 hectares of land.

"We need around 460 more water trucks to preserve the parks and greeneries," he said.

Surya Dharma, one of Syamsir's assistants, added that the office requires about 72 million liters of water daily to keep the trees and plants alive, while the truck fleet could only carry 281,000 liters of water.

Surya said that, due to the constraints of the city budget, the office can only purchase 10 water trucks each year.

Syamsir said that, to cope with the situation, his office has tried to find other ways of watering the greeneries. They include using the nearest rivers or wells, installing water sprinklers and building artesian wells at some parks such as Monas and around Banteng squares, around Pak Tani statue and Semanggi interchange.

"Hopefully, this will reduce our dependence on water trucks," he said.

The shortage of transportation is not the only problem faced by the office in their efforts to preserve the public parks.

"The school holiday will also pose another problem," he said.

In this dry season, which coincides with the school holiday season, some public parks have been used as playgrounds for children. Suara Pembaruan daily reported on Wednesday that a public park at Jatinegara viaduct, in East Jakarta, has been used as a soccer field.

Syamsir said that the office has to face such problems every school holiday.

"We face these same bad habits every school holiday," he said.

However, Syamsir said he would re-green all the damaged public parks using new foliage. He added that he would institute strict controls to prevent any more abuse.

He also called on the public to protect and preserve the public parks.

"We hope that they will not use the public parks for any irrelevant activities," he said.

Syamsir said that the office has anticipated all possibilities during this dry season. He said his office has an adequate water supply and human resources.

The dry season usually starts in February and lasts until September. (03)