Residents Complain About Rubbish and Illegal Parking in Front of Mataram Hajj Dormitory
Residents of Mataram city are complaining about the condition of the area in front of the Hajj dormitory on Jalan Lingkar Selatan, Jempong Baru, Sekarbela, which appears dirty. Rubbish is scattered at several points, while vehicles are parked haphazardly, encroaching on the roadway.
“We know this is activity for seeing off family members departing for Hajj, but surely they can’t just throw rubbish on the street instead of in the bins. Last night it was really dirty, even the smell was unpleasant,” complained Nila, one of the Mataram residents, on Wednesday (22/4/2026).
Similar complaints were voiced by Annisa. She said she directly witnessed drivers dumping rubbish indiscriminately on the road.
“Just now I saw a car throwing its rubbish straight onto the main road; it should be reprimanded. Do they think the main road is a rubbish dump?” she said.
In response to public complaints, the Secretary of the Mataram City Environment Agency (DLH), Irwansyah, assured that the area in front of the Hajj dormitory will be strictly guarded by officers and sanitation task forces from DLH Mataram. This is to minimise the accumulation of rubbish from traders or families accompanying Hajj pilgrims.
“There will be task forces and officers guarding those routes; the task forces will conduct sweeps at several points. Just today, there is about 1 tonne of rubbish (that we collected) in front of the Hajj dormitory,” he said on Wednesday.
Although the Mataram City Government (Pemkot) has officially banned traders and the like from selling on the road median, the city government emphasised that the road median should not be used as a resting area either.
“The road median must not be used for selling; tents shouldn’t be set up there. This will be our attention,” he stressed.
Meanwhile, the Head of the Mataram City Transportation Agency (Dishub), Zulkarwin, projected that in the coming weeks, the area in front of the Hajj dormitory will cause prolonged traffic jams. This is due to many large buses and private vehicles of Hajj escorts parked right on the roadway.
“There are many escorts, especially from the East Lombok batch. This congestion is likely to last for several weeks. Later, we will deploy a team from Dishub,” he said.
In a separate location, the Sekarbela Sub-district Head, Arief Satriawan, confirmed that the volume of vehicles at the Hajj dormitory is quite high. From pilgrim buses to private vehicles of escorts.
“We also found rubbish from traders and visitors discarded in the wrong places. For handling it, we have deployed 7 on-duty community protection officers, and there is also involvement from police apparatus,” he said.
“Together with DLH Mataram last night, we conducted a cleanliness patrol; we have distributed rubbish bags to traders,” he added.
For information, there are 809 pilgrims from Mataram city scheduled to depart for the holy land this week. Details include batch 5 consisting of 387 people and 6 officers, scheduled to enter the dormitory on 26 April. Followed by batch 10 with 387 pilgrims and 5 officers, as well as mixed batch 15 consisting of 33 people.