Over 16,000 netted in population operation

JAKARTA (JP): City authorities netted 16,023 people, who violated city population regulations, during an operation last month and fined 1,381 of the violators, a city official said.

Head of the City Population Office, Sudarsono, disclosed that the city collected Rp 6.88 million ($3,132) from the fines imposed on the 1,381 violators.

The types of the violations included: traveling without carrying valid identity cards; holding double identity cards; holding expired identity cards; and changing addresses without reporting to the neighborhood chiefs in their new areas of residence. By doing so, Sudarsono said, the people violated city decree on population number 5, issued in 1991.

Some of the violators, reportedly, were not Jakarta residents.

The authorities held on-the-spot trials and imposed a fine of between Rp 3,000 and Rp 6,000 on each violator.

The annual operation involved officers from the city office of population affairs, mayoralties, city police, the military, the prosecutors' offices and district courts.

Sudarsono said that city authorities would carry out another such operation in September.

The results of the operation, according to him, indicated that people's awareness of the need to posses valid identity cards was still low. Some of the violators did not even understand what the regulation was all about, Sudarsono said.

Under the existing regulation, people over the age of 17 should have only one identity card. He or she should carry it with them when traveling.

People are required to report to the local authorities when they move to other areas and change their identity cards according with their present addresses. "However, many people have failed to do so," he told The Jakarta Post.

In an effort to instill a high sense of awareness in the public of the importance of population regulations, including the need to have identity cards, the city's population office will hold extensive campaigns through print, as well as electronic media.(29)