Anies Naturalization Project Is Considered Just A Selfie Place

PSI faction member Justin Adrian takes a photo at the KBB naturalization location (Diah Ayu Wardani / VOI)

JAKARTA - The DKI Provincial Government has just completed the naturalization of the West Flood Canal (KBB) river for the Shangrilla-Karet section. This riverbank looks a little tidier than before.

Intrigued, the Jakarta DPRD PSI faction directly reviewed the face of naturalization which has been the champion of DKI Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan since the 2017 DKI Pilgub campaign.

So far, Anies explained that naturalization is basically the same as normalization, but puts forward reforestation or replanting. For example, a watershed area that is already filled with plantations or buildings can be overcome by making filters and then continuing with reforestation so that bottom erosion does not occur and can reduce flooding.

When looking directly at the naturalized location next to the BNI City Airport Train Station, you can see several parts of the concrete construction jutting into the river. The concrete construction is in the form of stairs down so that it can be accessed by the public, just for taking pictures and relaxing.

Next to the stairs, there are plant containers and trees. In addition, there is a barrier in the form of a white pergola shaped frame in the front area of the station so that people can take selfies with a river view in the background.

The naturalized river view also attracted PSI faction member Justin Adrian to take pictures. Although satisfied with the photos of himself, Justin still criticizes this naturalization project.

"If this is called naturalization, in my opinion, it is more precisely called a place for selfies. From the beginning we thought that naturalization was carried out in a river that was wide, only beautifying it, and not increasing the capacity of the waterways," Justin said at the location, Wednesday, February 12.

Based on Justin's monitoring, it turned out that this naturalization work took land in the river with a width of about 2-3 meters. As a result, the river became narrower. According to him, the naturalization that Anies had echoed for flood control was not effective.

"This suspicion has been proven in the field. Instead of helping to overcome flooding, the naturalization of rivers has actually reduced the flow of water," he said.

Therefore, Justin advised Anies to follow the steps of former DKI Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok) who carried out normalization as a step to identify floods. Even so, the naturalization project must relocate residential areas.

"I prefer normalization because naturalization itself has never been clearly explained scientifically what the concept is like, what its impact is. There is no clear study yet," he said.

Naturalized locations in some rivers in Sudirman-Pintu Air Karet (Diah Ayu Wardani / VOI)

For information, the river naturalization project that is being carried out by the Water Resources Office includes the Sudirman-Water Karet Segment Ciliwung River.

This project is called "River / River Infrastructure Development and Completeness of the West Flood Canal for the Karet - Sudirman Segment" which is allocated in the 2019 APBD. The budget issued is Rp. 12.7 billion. The executor of this project is PT. Jhuda Citraguna.

In Bappeda's presentation at the Public Consultation on Blood Work Plans (RKPD) on January 30, 2020, naturalization activities were carried out in a river that was already wide and just built a park on the river bank.

Corner of the stairs on the edge of the naturalization area (Diah Ayu Wardani / VOI)