Pulogebang bus terminal project starts next year
JAKARTA (JP): The construction of a modern city bus terminal in Pulogebang, East Jakarta, is due to start next year and the complex is expected to go into operation in 1998.
Prawoto Danoemihardjo, assistant to the city secretary responsible for development affairs, told reporters at City Hall yesterday that the developer had been asked to construct the terminal as soon as the results of the environment impact analysis had been obtained.
Prawoto said the development of the terminal should be synchronized with the construction of the access road networks by the city public works office so that the terminal could be used as soon as it had been completed.
The Pulogebang bus terminal will replace the 3.5-hectare Pulogadung bus station, which is no longer considered suitable for a bus terminal.
In 1989 the city administration signed a memorandum of understanding with a private company, PT Rodial Eron, to relocate the terminal under a barter agreement, whereby the developer would provide the land and build the terminal in Pulogebang in return for being allowed to use the site of the Pulogadung terminal for a commercial center.
Prawoto said the agreement had been approved by both the City Council and the Ministry of Home Affairs.
He said that the terminal would be constructed on a plot of land appropriated by the developer which measures 7.1 hectares.
Under the memorandum of understanding the total area of the terminal complex should have been 10 hectares, but for the moment only 7.1 hectares are available. Under the current agreement the city administration will later provide an additional 2.9 hectares to extend the terminal.
Monitor
In a related development, Lukman F. Mokoginta, the chairman of the Indonesian Democracy Party faction in the city council, said that the city administration should closely monitor the execution of the project in order to avoid a repeat of the mistakes made in the construction of the Kampung Rambutan bus terminal in East Jakarta in 1991.
The construction of the Kampung Rambutan bus terminal, during the tenure of Governor Wijogo Atmodarminto, was widely criticized by the public after it transpired that the contractors awarded the project by the governor had used low-quality building materials.
A few months after the terminal had been completed the walls developed cracks and the roads inside the complex proved easily damaged. Wiyogo was no longer governor when the construction of the station was completed.
The public blamed the fiasco on a lack of supervision on the part of the city administration viz-a-viz then governor Wiyogo. (32)