Water Access for Jakarta Residents is Not as Simple as Opening the Tap

TheIndonesia.id - Ita, the middle-aged woman, walked slowly towards the water connection meter at her house. She immediately pointed to a section of pipe outside the meter, in a section that was almost unrecognizable.

The PVC pipe looked like it was barely functional, dull and mossy, curved tucked between the broken concrete of the foundation. Wild grass grows around it.

At first glance it seems like nothing, but the pipe in Ita's house is actually part of the water connection from PAM Jaya, the government-owned drinking water company that serves Jakarta residents. In one part of the pipe, there appears to be some kind of haphazard connection to cover the leak.

"I (have) made a report that the PAM (pipe) is leaking. But it's outside the meter. It hasn't been repaired yet," said Ita, a resident of Jakarta who only introduces herself by name, without a full name.

It was afternoon towards the end of February 2024. During those weeks, Jakarta's weather was more dry than rainy on a daily basis, even though it had been raining in the area where Ita lived a few days before.

"That's a leak, that's also the reason why the PAM water is small. But it's not repaired... Even though every time I check the meter once a month, they say, 'Sir, there's a leak, but it's outside the meter,'" said Ita, continuing the story about the pipe. a water channel which he said had often reported leaks to PAM Jaya officers.

Ita's house is located on Jalan Slamet Riyadi IV, a small road on the side of the Ciliwung River, in the Matraman District area, East Jakarta. Is the water from this big river not included in what Ita and the surrounding residents can use for their clean water needs? No. Moreover, the river whose water looks like milk coffee itself has another story, the complexity of the problem exceeds the length of its flow.

To Suara.com, Ita admitted that she had actually lived in the area since the beginning, since 20 years ago, being a PAM Jaya customer. And since the beginning, he admitted that he had also relied on pumped well water (ground water) as an alternative source of water needs in his house.

"Recently (I) don't use PAM anymore, it's turned off. So I just paid the subscription for the last few years, (around) IDR 17 thousand to IDR 20 thousand (per month)," explained Ita.

Isa, another woman who only mentioned her first name, also told more or less the same thing. A middle-aged woman who lives in the same area, still on the outskirts of Ciliwung, admitted that she uses groundwater through pumped wells as an alternative for bathing and washing.

But Isa admitted that he didn't have his own well, but instead he got it via a hose connection from a pump well at his son's house nearby. Even that is not satisfactory, because every day the water they get is often not clear.

According to Isa, the well water he uses is only clear enough in the morning before 6 o'clock. After that, the water usually turns yellow and cloudy, and is only clear the next morning. Even so, he still relied on it for bathing and washing.

"When I cook (drinking water) I buy (refillable bottled water)," he said.

The daily conditions experienced or endured by residents like Ita and Isa are actually not unique to Jakarta. There are still many Jakarta residents who cannot or choose not to utilize clean water services from PAM Jaya due to various factors, and prefer to rely on ground water (wells) for bathing and washing, and bottled water or refill water for drinking needs.

Specifically for drinking water needs, data from BPS DKI Jakarta in 2020, for example, recorded that refillable water was the dominant use (in 78 sub-districts in Jakarta), followed by branded bottled water (73 sub-districts), then tap water or PAM water (in 56 sub-districts). ) and drilled well water (51 sub-districts). East Jakarta and South Jakarta are the two city areas with the dominant number of sub-districts in order of utilization.

There are still many Jakarta residents who do not use or are not served by clean water connections from PAM Jaya, this regional company leader himself admitted. PAM said the number reached 32-35 percent of Jakarta residents, which also refers to PAM Jaya's service coverage, which until 2023 was acknowledged to still be between 65-68%.

"32 percent of DKI residents still use groundwater and still exploit groundwater for daily life," said Syamsul Bachri Yusuf, Main Director of PAM Jaya at that time, in a report commemorating World Water Day in March 2022.

Arief Nasrudin, the official who replaced Syamsul as Main Director of PAM Jaya, said the same thing at the end of 2022. According to Arief at that time, to achieve 100 percent service coverage, PAM Jaya needed a new water supply of around 11,000 liters per second, as well as pipe connections along 4,000 km.

But new water sources or supplies and pipe connections are still lacking, causing PAM Jaya's service coverage to not even reach 70%, are not the only problems that the clean water service management company in Jakarta has to face. Service interruptions which still occur quite frequently, whether due to natural factors or due to damage to pipes or networks, are also another problem that often invites complaints and even anger from residents or customers.

An example of this happened recently, in early April 2024, when residents of no less than 82 sub-districts had to have their water supply from PAM Jaya cut off or disrupted. This happened following damage to a large raw water pipe belonging to PT Jasa Tirta II which has been under the coordination of PAM Jaya since April 1.

Regarding the service disruption, as reported, PAM Jaya acknowledged that there was a water supply disruption due to a leak in the raw water transmission pipe belonging to BUMN Perum Jasa Tirta (PJT) II on Jalan DI Panjaitan, East Jakarta, which supplies raw water to the Water Treatment Plant (IPA) in Pejompongan. It is also acknowledged that the disruption in raw water supply of 3000 liters per second has had an impact on PAM JAYA customers in 84 sub-districts in Jakarta.

A similar thing, but with a longer duration, was recently experienced by residents of one RT in the Cililitan area, East Jakarta. At that time, for about a month from November to early December 2023, residents in the neighborhood could not enjoy the water services they paid for every month. On average, they admitted that the flow from their water connections, which was previously strong, had to decrease considerably, to the point where it took 30 minutes to fill a small bucket completely.

 

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Note:

This story is produced as part of an environment reporting collaboration project themed "Water Access in Megacities" involving Suara.com (Indonesia), PumaPodcast (the Philippines), and Macaranga (Malaysia), supported by the International Media Support (IMS).

Suara's reporting team: Bimo, Fajar, Lilis, Fakhri, Hyoga, Iqbal (intern)