Public urged to adopt new burial system
Public urged to adopt new burial system
JAKARTA (JP): The City Public Funeral Agency has called on
residents to adopt multilayer burials for deceased family members
to help solve the scarcity of land in the capital.
"The fact that public graveyards are not increasing in size
while the city population is growing is the basic problem," the
agency's information officer, Eddy Supriyatna, said on Tuesday.
Eddy, stressing the need for a multilayer burial system for
those buried for more than one year, said: "It is not a violation
of any religious rule."
He said his office and the City Social Affairs Agency had
discussed the plan for multilayer graves with the Indonesian
Ulemas Council (MUI) and representatives from different religious
groups. "MUI has endorsed the plan," Eddy said.
He explained that a plot of 2.5 meters by 1.5 meters with a
depth of 1.5 meters was needed to bury an adult and that "the
space could, in truth, accommodate two to four bodies".
He said the system could help optimize the use of plots in
public cemeteries, adding that it would be more economical for
families of the deceased as they could save up to 75 percent of
the current maintenance fees.
Eddy said his office manages 101 public cemeteries on more
than 560 hectares in Greater Jakarta.
"Ideally, the size of those cemeteries should increase by 14
hectares annually."
He said last year the size increased by only 6,000 square
meters, and that took place in Pondok Kelapa Cemetery, East
Jakarta, where the price of land is relatively cheaper than other
parts of the capital.
He said unless the size of cemeteries increased significantly,
cemeteries would not be able to accommodate new burials by 2001.
He said an ideal public cemetery should be 785 hectares in order
to maintain its function until 2005.
"But with a limited city budget, we are pessimistic that the
target can be achieved," he complained.
According to official data, there are about 100 to 120 burials
every day in the city. Burials are divided into nine
categories with maintenance fees ranging from Rp 2,000 to Rp
50,000 every three years. Homeless families are exempt from the
fees.
"One of the most popular public cemeteries in the city is
Tanah Kusir in South Jakarta. It now accepts only multilayer
burials as it does not have any more plots," Eddy said.
Another program of the agency, said Eddy, was to redesign the
cemeteries so they are environmentally friendly and to get away
from their "spooky" image.
"We want to try to make cemeteries look like parks with
various kinds of flowers and trees," he said, stressing that
graves would also be redesigned with a standardized shape -- with
raised soil and without tombstones -- so rainwater could be
readily absorbed and multilayer burials implemented easily.
Eddy said he hoped the public would welcome the idea of
multilayer burials and standardized graves without tombstones
so maintenance would be much simpler and economical.
Four cemeteries have adopted the plan. They are in
Pondok Ranggon and Pondok Kelapa, East Jakarta, Kampung Kandang,
South Jakarta, and Semper, North Jakarta. (06)