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.