Railway operator urged to improve efficiency, upkeep

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

Four employees of state-owned railway operator PT KAI were seen chatting inside a ticket booth at Cawang station, East Jakarta, on Friday morning while two others sat at their desks serving customers.

As hundreds of commuters from Bogor, Depok and Pasar Minggu in South Jakarta alighted and hurriedly approached the exit gate, one of the employees went out to check the passengers' tickets.

Most of them slipped by him and went out without showing their tickets. His colleagues didn't bother to help him.

At each of the stations along the Bogor and Kota route, many employees were seen standing idly chatting to one another or in groups.

With around 32,000 employees nationwide, many say that the idle employees at PT KAI are the source of inefficiency in the company.

Train researcher Taufik Hidayat from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) said that 60 percent of KAI's total expenses of around Rp 2.2 billion went to salaries while the remaining 40 percent was divided between several types of expenses, including maintenance.

"Certainly, the funds used to maintain the existing equipment are far from sufficient. We have repeatedly urged KAI to improve its efficiency but little action has been taken so far," he told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

He said that KAI had lowered its spending on maintenance to be able to cover the cost of salaries and to keep up its profitable image although it had to sacrifice its quality of services and public safety.

"This poor maintenance has caused the recurrent accidents and delays that we have experienced in the last few years," Taufik said.

At least 52 people have died in 60 train accidents across the country this year up until June, including the recent accident in Pasar Minggu that claimed at least four lives and injured 600 other passengers.

The government said earlier that it would take Rp 11.6 trillion to provide spare parts and maintain the existing system.

The KAI's inefficiency can also be seen by the fact that the company reported only Rp 4 billion in profit last year. Its total assets are worth around Rp 3 trillion.

"The profit is nothing compared with its assets. It just that the government has requested the company to stay profitable (while sacrificing maintenance)," Taufik said.

Taufik, who is also the executive director of Indonesia Railway Watch, said that ticket and cargo revenue covered almost 96 percent of the total expenses with the remainder was covered by revenue from rental space and parking.

He argued that KAI should maximize its ticket revenue to be able to increase its maintenance budget.

A KAI official estimated that only half of Greater Jakarta's total daily 450,000 passengers bought tickets, which range from Rp 1,000 to Rp 3,000.

As building fences along the tracks requires a lot of money, Taufik proposed that many of KAI's idle employees could be mobilized to help in ticket screening to raise the company's revenue.

The head of PT KAI's Greater Jakarta operations Rachmadi said that his office had conducted programs to improve people's awareness of buying tickets as well as routine operations to screen people entering and leaving the station buildings.

"We have tried also to punish our officials who take money from people without a ticket on board. They have to set an example for passengers," he told the Post.