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An ambitious $ 32.5 billion project will move the Indonesian capital from a crowded, polluted and sunken Jakarta to a sparsely populated jungle area in Borneo.
The Indonesian Parliament has approved a bill relocation of the national capital From Jakarta to a jungle area on the island of Borneo.
The new state capital law passed on Tuesday provides a legal framework for President Widodo’s ambitious $ 32.5 billion megaproject and sets out how its development will be funded and governed.
The president chose the name of the new city: Nusantara, the Javanese name for the Indonesian archipelago.
“The new capital has a central function and is a symbol of the nation’s identity, as well as a new center of economic gravity,” said Planning Minister Suharso Monoarfa after approving the bill.
‘Super hub’
Plans by the government to relocate Jakarta – a vibrant metropolitan area of 10 million people, with chronic congestion, floods, pollution and sinking due to excessive groundwater extraction – have been announced by several presidents, but none have so far. .
Jokowi, as the president is very well known, first announced the plan in 2019, but progress was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
His government envisions the new capital as a low-carbon “super hub” that will support the pharmaceutical, healthcare and technology sectors and promote sustainable growth beyond the island of Java, the country’s most populous area.
Today, 54 percent of Indonesia’s nearly 270 million people live in Java.
The site of the new capital, 2,000 km (1,250 miles) northeast of Jakarta, will be located between the regents of North Penjam Paser and Kutai Kartanega in the province of Kalimantan in Borneo, home to 900,000 people. It is located in central Indonesia, one of the least prone areas for natural disasters that regularly hit the vast archipelago of 17,000 islands.
The government has allocated 180,000 hectares (445,000 acres) of land for the planned city, and Jokowi has previously said that moving the administration center would take a decade. The state will fund 19 percent of the $ 32.5 billion cost, and the rest will come from public-private partnerships and private investment.
The price tag includes new government offices and homes for about 1.5 million civil servants.
But critics say there has been limited public consultation on the plan, while environmentalists fear the move will accelerate the destruction of forests inhabited by orangutans, sun bears and long-nosed monkeys, as well as increasing growing pollution from coal mining. and palm oil industries.
Nusanta – after the creation of new capitals in countries such as Brazil and more recently in Myanmar – will be headed by a senior minister, according to Saan Mustofa, vice chairman of the special committee on the bill.
Among those being considered for office are Bambang Brodjonegoro, former Minister of Research and Technology, and Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, former governor of Jakarta, known as Ahok.
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