Luhut: Train-Based Mass Transportation Will Save IDR 100 Trillion

Railroad illustration (Irfan Meidianto / VOI)

JAKARTA - The Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan said the government is encouraging the development of rail-based mass transportation facilities. Because, he said, it was able to save operational costs of Rp. 100 trillion.

If detailed, said Luhut, the value consists of savings in vehicle operating costs of IDR 40 trillion and IDR 60 trillion for road maintenance.

"The amount is equivalent to 4 percent of gross regional domestic product and the use of mass transportation will significantly reduce congestion," he said, in a virtual discussion, Wednesday, August 19.

The high cost of saving from this railway infrastructure, said Luhut, is reflected in the large number of passengers who use this mass transportation mode. Based on data from PT KAI Commuter Line, there were 336 million people in and out of Jakarta in 2019.

Furthermore, Luhut said, the development of this rail-based mass transportation mode would not only be built on the island of Java. He emphasized that the government will also develop it in Bali, Sulawesi, Kalimantan and Sumatra.

"The government is also committed to making river, lake and ferry transportation because they provide a very important role as an element of connectivity," he said.

According to Luhut, the construction of transportation infrastructure is very important to connect all the islands, which number more than 17,500. Equitable infrastructure development can encourage domestic economic growth.

"This development will have a multiplier effect which will guarantee national economic development," he explained.

On the same occasion, Minister of Transportation Budi Karya Sumadi said that transportation has an important role in connecting one region to another. Transportation is also the lifeblood of encouraging economic growth in a region.

According to Budi, transportation can act as an adhesive for the diversity of ethnic groups, cultures, races and languages. Because Indonesia is an archipelago that has more than 17 thousand islands from Sabang to Merauke, from Miangas to Rote.

"Transportation is a knot of connectivity that binds, knitting a diversity of ethnic, cultural, racial and linguistic identities. The presence of the government through the Ministry of Transportation is important. We have to think about the front, the outermost, the remote to strengthen diversity," he said.

For your information, this year the government has increased the infrastructure budget in the 2020 State Budget (APBN) posture by 4.9 percent to Rp.419.2 trillion. The value of the infrastructure budget is the largest in the era of President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) administration.

The infrastructure budget in 2020 consists of economic infrastructure of IDR 405.1 trillion, social infrastructure IDR 8.7 trillion, and infrastructure support IDR 5.3 trillion.