Jakarta-wapresri.go.id. Vice President Jusuf Kalla urged the Indonesia Water Supply Association (Perpamsi) that accommodates local water utilities (PDAM) throughout Indonesia to immediately realize the government’s target to connect 10 million households to clean water by 2019.
“All people need clean water and it is irreplaceable with anything else,” said the Vice President when receiving Perpamsi central board at the Office of the Vice President, on Jalan Merdeka Utara, Jakarta on Monday (May, 2).
Perpamsi chairman Rudie Kusmayadi reported to the Vice President that Perpamsi is currently verifying and observing the existence of 395 PDAMs throughout Indonesia.
“So far, we have connected pipelines to 10.4 million households. In the near future, 3 million new connections will be realized,” Rudie said, adding that the project needs 8 million rupiah (US$603) to establish connection in each household and thus the total budget required for 10 million new connections is 80 trillion rupiah.
In response, the Vice President reminded Perpamsi not to take too long to hold the study given the increasing public demand for clean water.
The government, Vice President added, promised to continue allocating funds to support the construction of water infrastructure.
On the occasion, Rudie also complained about the poor quality of raw water obtained from the environment resulting in the higher cost of processing raw water into clean water.
The Vice President replied that poor raw water is due to worse condition of forest which is important for water retention. For that reason, he said, government also run a forest restoration program to restore green environment.
“We are going to restore our forests and our lakes that serve to preserve the water before being processed,” said the Vice President.
Concluding the meeting, Rudie invited the Vice President to formally open the Indonesia Water and Wastewater Expo & Forum (IWWEF) which will be held by Perpamsi tomorrow (May, 03) at the Jakarta Convention Center in Jakarta. The Vice President agreed to attend it.
Accompanying Rudi in the meeting were some Perpamsi central board members, namely Musleh (vice chairman), Ahmad Zaini and Priyohutomo (expert staff), Ashari Mardiono (executive director), and Eppo Simanjuntak (project manager).
