Work set to start on MRT extension

JAKARTA: An Indonesian-Japanese joint venture to extend the country’s first mass rapid transit system in Jakarta will begin next month, nearly a year after the railway debuted in the capital with a promise of easing its notoriously congested traffic.

Yesterday, PT MRT Jakarta, operator of the mass rapid transit, signed a contract with a joint venture of the stateowned construction company PT Adhi Karya and Japanese general contractor Shimizu Corp.

The contract, worth 4.04 trillion rupiah (9.2 trillion baht), covers the design and construction of six stations along the 6-kilometre underground section of an 11.8km northward extension on the North-South Line from Bundaran Hotel Indonesia Station in Central Jakarta.

The work is expected to be completed in December 2024.

PT MRT Jakarta said in a statement that construction of stations on the remaining 5.8km elevated section of the line is expected to start mid 2022.

The extension will be the second phase of Jakarta’s mass rapid transit project. It stretches to downtown Kota in West Jakarta.

The first phase, a 15.7km stretch of the North-South Line, was launched last March under a project partly financed by a 125 billion yen soft loan from the Japan International Cooperation Agency.

More than 10 million people live in Jakarta proper, while the greater metropolitan area is home to three times that number.

It takes just 30 minutes to travel the entire 15.7km stretch on the commuter train, a drastic reduction in time travelling by bus. The fully air-conditioned train also offers added comfort to passengers.

President Joko Widodo has pushed for an early launch of the 32km EastWest Line for which a feasibility study is now being conducted.