Monas facelift to start soon

Monas facelift to start soon

JAKARTA (JP): The long-awaited beautification of the National
Monument (Monas) in Central Jakarta will get underway next week,
a senior official said yesterday.

Under the project, the city administration will relocate the
ubiquitous vendors, rearrange parking lots, provide more toilets,
install more lights and supply more trash bins.

"Monas will have a more beautiful scenery with (the planting
of) flowers," Deputy Governor for Social Welfare Affairs,
Djailani said, adding that the administration would cooperate
with the flower growers' association.

The project aims at reshaping Monas as the city's symbol, a
recreational park, and a green area as stated in its master plan
drawn up in 1994.

"It would take a long time to rebuild Monas," Djailani said.
"The top priority will be to relocate vendors and ban people from
parking their vehicles all over the place."

He said that Monas was chaotic because many people had
"abused" it.

Under the plan, the vendors will be pooled in the former Taman
Ria recreational ground in the southern corner of Monas. The city
will build a parking lot in the western corner for tourist buses
and part of Taman Ria will be used as a parking lot for private
vehicles.

Employees of offices around Monas will no longer be allowed to
park their vehicles in the area. Special parking lots for them
will be built near Lapangan Banteng square and Istiqlal Mosque.

Monas is located on an 80-hectare area, which is surrounded by
four streets: Jl. Medan Merdeka Utara, Jl. Medan Merdeka Timur,
Jl. Medan Merdeka Barat and Jl. Medan Merdeka Utara.

Numerous government buildings, including the President's and
ministers' offices as well as the American Embassy, are located
on the streets which border Monas.

Monas is a popular recreational park among Jakartans,
especially on Sundays. But visitors have often complained that
the many vendors and inadequate number of trash bins have created
cleanliness problems.

Djailani said that the new parking lots would be located quite
a distance from the monument "to solve the problem" and special
carts would be made available to transport visitors around.

The administration has not allocated a special budget for the
project, he said.

"The money will come from several related agencies, such as
the City Sanitary Agency and the City Park Agency."

Djailani said that to ensure Monas was used as it was designed
to be, the administration and city police would supervise the
area. (ind)