Gibran Agrees To Build The South Ring Road Urai Kemacetan, Klaten Regent Rejects: Less Land, Lowering Padi Production

Solo Mayor Gibran Rakabuming Raka (ANTARA)

SOLO - The Solo City Government will invite the surrounding local government to discuss the discourse on the construction of the southern ring road which involves several districts such as Karanganyar and Klaten. "Yes, it will be discussed later. Actually, this conversation has existed since I first took office," said Solo Mayor Gibran Rakabuming Raka in Solo, quoted from Antara, Tuesday, January 3. He ensured that he would accommodate various inputs from the local regent regarding the projected plan. "We'll talk to you one by one, for example, the Jogja-Solo toll road, someone agrees and disagrees, it's normal," he said. However, he assessed that the development was needed for greater interests, namely unraveling traffic congestion in the city. "We see the urgency, the traffic in Solo is already like this," he said. Moreover, according to him, traffic jams do not only occur in the city but also at points of entry to the city of Solo. Related to this, Klaten Regent Sri Mulyani is worried that the ring road project will consume more sustainable rice fields. Moreover, so far Klaten is one of the national food barns. So far, the Solo-Jogja toll road project has consumed a lot of sustainable rice fields. Especially in the Klaten Regency area, of the approximately 500 hectares of land used for toll roads, 300 ha of which are sustainable rice fields. "The agricultural land is almost 300 ha affected by toll road construction. There is a discourse on the southern circle so that the government will review it first because we have to think about the future, children and grandchildren," he said. He said that if it was realized, the ring road project would eat up about 30 hectares of rice fields. "Later, Klaten will not be able to maintain its relation to the national food barn. Of course, our land will decrease, production will automatically decrease," he said. Meanwhile, regarding the discourse, he has not been involved in communication, either with the central government or the Surakarta City Government. However, he will welcome the communication plan that will be carried out by Gibran. "Meanwhile, the ministry has not coordinated directly with me. (They only) check the location from the ministry directly to the village," he said.