PAM Jaya Denies Kalideres Pipe-Laying Project Has Stalled

JAKARTA — PT PAM Jaya has rejected residents’ claims that the clean-water pipe-digging project on Jalan Peta Selatan in Kalideres, West Jakarta, is stalled and neglected. Senior Manager for Corporate & Customer Communications at PAM Jaya, Gatra Vaganza, stressed that the lack of visible worker activity at the trenching site is due to the piping process using the jacking method. ‘Because we push the pipe using a method called jacking. Because nowadays in Jakarta the open-cut method, which involves cutting open the road along its entire length, is no longer allowed,’ Gatra said when contacted by Kompas.com on Wednesday, 4 March 2026. Therefore, several trench holes visible are not used as locations for physical work, but as monitoring points for the new pipe. ‘Well, those holes are actually to see whether the pipe is straight, or not, and whether it matches,’ Gatra said. Gatra also acknowledged residents’ confusion that the project had been left in the lurch due to no workers being stationed around the holes. ‘That’s why when people pass by, it looks like there’s just holes and no work. There isn’t any surface work because these are for monitoring,’ he explained. ‘During the works, that’s the impression you get when people pass by, because the pipe is actually being pushed from the starting point underground to the end,’ he added. The works, originally scheduled to be completed in February 2026, have had to be extended to April 2026. This was due to technical difficulties where PAM Jaya’s pipe route intersected with other underground utility networks. ‘So the situation at the trench point is currently constrained. Underneath the trench, there are other utility networks, causing the progress to fall behind,’ Gatra said. Earlier reports noted that residents and road users around Jalan Peta Selatan complained about the five PAM Jaya pipe trenches encroaching on the road along the Pegadungan direction.