The 2022 Infiltration Well Budget Is Abolished By DPRD, DKI Provincial Government Will Create It From Leftover Materials

ILLUSTRATION / BUTTER

JAKARTA - The DKI Jakarta Provincial Government will look for other ways to work on the construction of vertical drainage or infiltration wells whose budget was removed or zeroed by the DKI Regional Representative Council (DPRD) in the 2022 Regional Budget (APBD).

If previously massive infiltration wells were carried out by a third party or the private sector through an auction process, next year DKI will use the remaining materials and existing builders.

"We have our own tools, the task force has also been paid. For example, use concrete and then print it yourself, for example. The point is, with the existing funds, we will still optimize it,” said Secretary of the Water Resources Service Dudi Gardesi to reporters, Thursday, December 2.

However, Dudi admitted that the DKI Jakarta Provincial Government was able to build infiltration wells themselves, without an additional budget, it could not increase the number of infiltration wells in large numbers, such as the work in 2021 involving third parties.

"If it's like printed concrete, maybe it won't be too massive. We do have our own cement, we also have iron, but not on a scale like now," said Dudi.

Therefore, Dudi said the DKI Provincial Government will also focus on maintaining and maximizing the function of infiltration wells such as increasing the depth of their water capacity.

Previously, the DKI Jakarta DPRD Budget Agency (Banggar) decided to cross out the budget for the construction of vertical infiltration or drainage wells proposed by the DKI Provincial Government in the DKI Regional Budget for the 2022 fiscal year.

Deputy Chairman of Commission D of the DKI Jakarta DPRD, Nova Harivan Paloh, said that this decision was made at the last Banggar discussion, with the previous year's infiltration well budget being proposed at IDR 120 billion.

"At the Banggar meeting, the final agreement (the infiltration well budget) was finally nullified. So now there are no more activities (funded by the APBD) for infiltration wells," Nova told reporters, Thursday, December 1.

Nova said that the abolition of the infiltration well budget next year was decided by the chairman of the DKI DPRD as well as the Banggar Chair of the DKI DPRD Prasetyo Edi Marsudi because he received complaints from a number of council members.

Several members of the DKI DPRD consider infiltration wells to be ineffective in helping to solve the flood problem in Jakarta. In the general view of the DPRD faction against the draft regional regulation of DKI regarding the 2022 budget year, last November 16, there were five factions that asked for infiltration wells to be evaluated.