Thames sets sights lower for Jakarta water service

Adisti Sukma Sawitri, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

In response to massive water theft in the city, water operator PT Thames Pam Jaya (TPJ) says it will lower service targets for the next five years.

External relations and communications director Rhamses Simanjuntak said the firm proposed the lower targets in a feasibility study submitted to the city's water company, PT PAM Jaya.

The feasibility study was part of the process of modifying the company's water concession contract with the administration this year.

Rhamses said the targets the company agreed to with PAM Jaya in 1997 were no longer achievable given existing conditions in the city.

"We have to set realistic targets that we think we can achieve in the coming years. The government set high targets for us in the past due for political reasons, but we need to match the targets with conditions now," he told The Jakarta Post during a visit to the Post's office on Thursday.

He said the original contract was signed before the financial crisis hit the country. After the crisis, the targets became unrealistic due to the stagnant development of new constructions such as offices and hotels, costing the company potential customers.

Talks to review the water contract will take place until the end of this year.

The Soeharto government awarded the capital's water concession to two water operators, TPJ and PT Pam Lyonnaise Jaya (Palyja), in 1997. TPJ operates in the eastern part of the city while Palyja runs service in the western area of the city.

The contract, which binds the administration and the operators until 2022, includes performance targets the two operators must achieve every five years, including production volumes, water consumption, non-revenue water (water lost due to illegal consumption and connections), pipe pressures and service coverage ratio.

The contract, Rhamses said, states that TPJ must reach 41 percent of non-revenue water and a 74 percent service coverage ratio as of last year. However, the company has only achieved 53 percent of non-revenue water and 66 percent service coverage ratio.

TPJ president director Syahril Japarin said water theft was one of the main reasons for the company's water losses.

Last year, the company recorded 1,156 illegal connections and 5,397 incidents of illegal consumption that wasted more than 2.5 million cubic meters of tap water.

Syahril said the company had taken a number of steps to stop illegal connections and consumption in the city, from reporting the perpetrators to the police to developing new technologies to prevent water theft and leakages in its network.

The most difficult thing is, he said, there are too many perpetrators, from companies to individual consumers.

"We are now trying to cooperate with local leaders to improve residents' awareness that it is not OK to steal tap water," he said.

He said the company had also developed a district meter area (DMA) strategy that would isolate the metering of water distribution in an area, to make it easier to monitor leakage.

The company has operated 130 DMA installations that cover 34 percent of its service area since 2003.