Coverage Of Pipe Water Services Increases 3 Percent A Year, PAM Jaya: Needs Extraordinary Collosal Work

Photo: Diah Ayu-VOI

JAKARTA - Director of Perumda PAM Jaya Service Syahrul Hasan revealed that the coverage of piped water services in Jakarta at the end of 2024 reached 70.29 percent. This figure is up 3 percent from the previous year.

Meanwhile, the DKI Provincial Government targets the coverage of clean water services in Jakarta to reach 100 percent by 2030. Syahrul admitted that the increase in 3 percent of service coverage was significant.

Because, according to him, almost no other drinking water company (PDAM) besides Jakarta is able to increase service coverage by more than 1 percent in one year.

"You can check at Perumda, any PDAM outside Jakarta, to reach 1 digit of service or 1 percent of service in one year, it is very difficult. Why? Because there really needs extraordinary colossal work, especially capital issues for sure," said Syahrul in a discussion at DKI Jakarta City Hall, Wednesday, February 12.

As of 2021, the number of piped water customers served by PAM Jaya is 958,620 house connections with distributed water of 20,993 liters per second.

"Then, the number of pipes (which have been connected to the clean water network) now is 12,202 kilometers, which was previously a kilometer. This means that for 2 years we were able to add approximately 200 kilometers," he explained.

Meanwhile, the level of water leakage or non-revenue water (NRW) for piping water services is at 45.8 percent. This uncollected water rose 0.02 percent from last year. One of the reasons is that the condition of the pipeline in Jakarta is that many are old to hundreds of years. Another factor that resulted in NRW's theft of water from irresponsible parties.

"Because of the leakage in the network, the water produced at our water treatment plant (IPA), the output is not the same as the water felt by the community. This leak is a problem that is beyond PAM Jaya's ability," explained Syahrul.

In the next five years, the DKI Provincial Government is targeting PAM Jaya customers to reach 2,006,167 house connections with a pipe length of 19,234 kilometers. It is also targeted that the water leakage rate will decrease by 30 percent by 2030.

In this regard, Nirwono assessed that the expansion of the coverage of piped water services in Jakarta in terms of quantity must also be accompanied by quality. PAM Jaya, according to Nirwono, needs to accelerate the development of services that can increase the standards of piped clean water to ready-to-drink water directly from the tap.

"If the quality and quantity are not sufficient, it is still difficult to encourage residents to move to PAM water," continued Nirwono.

"If the clean water itself also doesn't increase, don't expect the quality of Jakarta's human resources to also increase. So, like it or not, the role of clean water for Jakarta residents greatly affects the increase in the ranking of global cities in Jakarta. Moreover, the target of 2030 is already 100 percent," added Nirwono.

On the other hand, Nirwono also advised PAM Jaya to prioritize additional water connections in the North Jakarta area, especially the coast. This is because excessive use of groundwater will result in land subsidence that endangers the community.

"Some research shows that some of the points where the groundwater is drawn are reduced, even stopped, the decline is slowing," he added.