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)