Railway company out-of-order
Railway company out-of-order
Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
One third of the almost 400 coaches belonging to the state-owned
railway company PT KAI serving Greater Jakarta cannot be operated
due to their poor condition.
PT KAI President Director Umar Berto said on Wednesday that
the company could operate only 252 coaches, carrying 450,000
passengers daily.
"We cannot operate the rest due to their poor condition," he
said at the launching of the newly-established Indonesian Railway
Watch.
IRW Executive Director Taufik Hidayat said that this number of
coaches was far from enough to serve people in the Greater
Jakarta area. Ideally, the company would need some 650 coaches.
Most of the coaches here are aging - the oldest ones, 20
coaches in all, were built in 1976.
Earlier on Wednesday, the new watchdog organization revealed
the findings of a study it carried out in cooperation with the
Indonesian Consumers' Foundation (YLKI).
The study revealed that PT KAI has still been unable to
improve its services even though the budget for maintenance in
2001 was increased by 213 percent over the previous year.
Taufik said in the report that in 2001, PT KAI spent Rp 14.71
billion on the maintenance of the coaches operated in Greater
Jakarta.
"The hike in the maintenance budget has not significantly
improved the service," he said.
The report says that in 2000, KAI spent Rp 6.9 billion on the
maintenance of 350 coaches. The number of coaches that were
capable of being operated amounted to 190 units. In 2002, despite
the supply of 72 used coaches from Japan, the number of coaches
that were capable of being operated in Greater Jakarta only
amounted to 204.
"It means that there were more coaches that could not be
operated in 2001 than in 2000 even though the funds allocated for
maintenance had increased significantly," said Taufik.
Rail travel is a popular choice for employees living in
Jakarta's satellite cities of Depok, Bogor, Tangerang and Bekasi
for commuting to Jakarta. The state of the trains, however, is
still far from what is hoped for by the public in terms of
frequency, security and comfort.