The city thirsts among lush golf courses
The city thirsts among lush golf courses
By Andreas Harsono and Hidayat Jati
JAKARTA (JP): While the dragging drought continues to deplete
Jakarta's water supply, this natural unpleasantness has exposed
the often neglected facts of this third-world metropolis: the
poor are deprived and the rich live in excess.
This is evident in the case of Siti Nurrofiqoh, a 21-year-old
laborer at a garment factory who lives in Kemandoran, South
Jakarta, who must devote almost 10 percent of her Rp 3,800
(US$1.7) daily income just to get a bath in a very humble public
bathhouse.
On top of that, Nurrofiqoh has to queue up in a crowded,
stinking small alley for half-an-hour before paying for what has
become a luxury for her.
"We cannot take our regular baths nor wash our clothes since
our artesian well dried up two months ago," she sighed.
The drought also means extra spending for thousands of low-
income people living in areas outside the City Water Company (PAM
Jaya) service areas, such as some subdistricts in South and East
Jakarta as well as Depok.
Thousands of others, to some extent, share similar
experiences, such as waiting for the water pressure of their
piped water to improve, or their deep wells to fill, waiting
until late at night or sometimes until early morning.
Their predicament came not long after government officials
estimated that the 1994 drought will prove to be one of the most
serious over the last decade.
Director General of Irrigation Soeparmono told The Jakarta
Post recently that access to potable water is a major problem for
low income residents who live in areas where piped water is not
available.
The city administration, Soeparmono said, stepped up its
efforts of installing water pipes throughout the capital city in
a bid to subdue regular droughts, saying that only around 30
percent of Jakarta's estimated 8.5 million population had piped
water.
"The rest use groundwater to meet their daily needs," said
Deputy Governor for Economic and Development Tb. M. Rais,
referring to high-rise buildings, heavy industries and golf-
courses, which are among the unquenchable consumers of Jakarta's
limited groundwater, to ordinary households which usually utilize
their iron hand pumps or electric pumps to obtain groundwater for
their daily needs.
Injustice
Various artesian well users, however, exploit the natural
sources in extremely unrivaled approaches.
Kadi, a resident of Depok, a suburb south of Jakarta, said he
and other residents living in a housing complex for middle and
low-income earners are also experiencing the effects of the
dragging drought.
"I bathe and wash my clothes at my neighbor's house," Kadi
said.
But the drought means luck for Siswanto, a driver who is now
working as a part-time plumber.
"My husband has received at least five orders a month over the
last three months from neighbors who need to deepen their wells,"
Siswanto's wife said.
On the other hand, Jakarta's lush golf-courses, a favorite
sport for the city's over privileged residents, need some 1,000
cubic meters of groundwater to be sprayed every day to keep each
one of their mostly 18-hole courses fresh, clean and green.
They usually use expensive hydroelectric equipment, costing
millions of rupiah, which can suck up excessive amounts of water
in a very short period.
"That amount of water could supply the daily need of 1,000
families," said Saleh Abdullah, the vice-coordinator of the NGO
Network for Forest Conservation in Indonesia (Skephi), which
conducted the research on golf-courses.
Saleh warned that exorbitant exploitation of groundwater could
lead to serious environmental destruction such as seawater
seepage and the sinking of the earth's surface.
Soeparmono also warned that Jakarta will encounter serious
water problems by the year 2018 if no concrete measures are taken
to check the uncontrolled use of groundwater.
Sad to say, for those like Nurrofiqoh, Kadi and others who do
not play golf there may be major hardships ahead.