Water service warmly welcomed

Arya Abhiseka, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Nursamsiah, a kindergarten teacher, said on Tuesday she and her students were pleased with the newly installed tap water connection in their small mosque, making it easier for them to get clean water.

She and her students at the Nurul Iman kindergarten on Jl. Lada Hitam in Kota, West Jakarta, previously had to get water from a nearby well. "It was muddy and smelly," she said of the well water.

In addition to the new tap in the mosque, Nursamsiah and the students who live in the neighborhood can now also enjoy clean tap water at home.

"Everything is a lot more practical now," she said.

A recent tap water installation project in several poor neighborhoods has had a positive impact not just on the lives of Nursamsiah and her students, but also on many other residents.

Many of the city's urban poor have no access to life's basic necessities, including clean water.

Those who have benefited from the recent tap water project have had nothing but good things to say about the results.

"The water pressure is strong and the water quality is good. I could not be much happier," said Somad, a resident of Mangga Besar in Central Jakarta who sells noodles for a living.

Maria Sidabutar, spokeswoman for PT PAM Lyonnaise Jaya (Palyja), told The Jakarta Post the urban poor who received tap water services would be categorized in Group I or Group II, meaning they would be charged according to the old water rates of Rp 375 (4 US cents) per cubic meter.

Other poor areas to receive tap water connections were Karang Anyar Utara, Jl. Kartini, Jl. Mangga Besar, Jl. Jembatan Merah and Jl. Dwi Warna I Dalam, all in Central Jakarta, and Jl. Kebon Jeruk in West Jakarta.

Many of Jakarta's eight million residents continue to live without tap water connections. In some neighborhoods without tap water, residents have set up pumps to extract clean groundwater.

People in poor neighborhoods in areas of West and Central Jakarta also have difficulty accessing clean groundwater because seawater has seeped into the water supply.

Tap water has not reached many poor neighborhoods because of a lack of infrastructure.

However, more poorer neighborhoods can look forward to receiving clean tap water after about 790 kilometers of new water pipes were added to the system and another 490 kilometers of pipes were repaired.

Just before the fall of president Soeharto in 1998, state- owned water company PAM Jaya signed a cooperation agreement with French water company Lyonnaise and British water company Thames.

The water operators have been criticized by many customers for poor service. These customers say the quality of the water is bad and that the water supply is often disrupted.

PT Palyja manages tap water services in the city on the western side of the Ciliwung River and PT Thames PAM Jaya on the eastern side.