Director General Of Highways: Road Repairs In Jambi Need IDR 824 Billion

Jalan Sudamanik, Parung Panjang, Bogor Regency, was badly damaged by being crossed by a mining truck. (Photo: Special)

JAKARTA - Director General of Highways of the Ministry of PUPR Hedy Rahadian revealed that mining vehicle activities in Jambi must be addressed immediately considering the magnitude of the impacts caused, such as long traffic and damage to national roads.

He explained, in 2021, the activity of coal transport vehicles will increase dramatically in 2021 when coal commodity prices increase.

"In 2020, we have almost 9,000 trucks that will definitely become chaos because there is no mitigation process," he said in a Hearing Meeting with Commission V of the Indonesian House of Representatives, Wednesday, March 29.

Hedy said that repairing roads with the capacity of normal passing vehicles requires a cost of Rp. 824 billion.

"But if the vehicle is like now, we need Rp. 8.4 trillion," continued Hedy.

According to him, this happened because the bigger the vehicles passing, the greater the impact of the damage caused.

Moreover, he continued, vehicles passing through have been modified in such a way that it further adds to the impact of damage.

He added, based on the road economy, the optimal vehicle weight is 8 to 2 tons.

"Why is this restriction? Because above that the cost of road maintenance far exceeds the benefits of roads," explained Hedy.

Furthermore, he added, the 2/2 UD road capacity is approximately 1700 trucks carrying per day in one direction.

For this reason, he asked related parties to normalize the number of vehicles passing on Jambi's national road so that they could reduce the cost of repairing and working on roads.

"We are ready to handle this within the limits of public financial responsibility. But if we can't handle Rp8 trillion. It's impossible! This must be normalized again, we are ready to pay for road repairs under normal conditions according to applicable regulations," concluded Hedy.