Palyja receives ISO certification

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Despite frequent complaints about the quality of the product it provides, tap water operator PT PAM Lyonnaise Jaya (Palyja) announced Tuesday it had been internationally recognized.

Palyja director Thierry Krieg said Tuesday the awarding of ISO 9001:2000 certification to the company by the England-based United Registrar of Systems certification bureau was evidence the company had been performing well.

"With the certification, Palyja will improve productivity and service quality for all of our customers," he said.

The certification was awarded for two production and transmission installations located in Pejompongan, Central Jakarta. One of them was officially launched by Indonesia's first president Sukarno in 1957.

Currently there are two water operators in the city. Palyja serves the western side of Jakarta, while PT Thames PAM Jaya (TPJ) provides water to people living in the east.

City water company PT PAM Jaya offered a 25-year contract in 1997 to Palyja (then owned by French firm Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux) and TPJ (then owned by the UK's Thames Water Overseas Ltd) to manage the city's water supply and services.

However, many customers have complained in recent years that they often experience water shortages and the water provided is of a poor quality.

Palyja public relations manager Meyritha Maryanie said old and rusty distribution pipes prevented the companies from providing better water.

"We produce potable water. I am not afraid of drinking the water at our centers, but the old pipes ruin its quality," she said.

Palyja claims to be currently serving around 377,000 water connections for around 3.2 million people in the western side of Jakarta.

The city's official population is 8.4 million but it could be as high as 12 million if daily commuters were taken into consideration.

However, only half of the city's residents are able to access tap water. The rest of the them rely on ground water for their daily needs Palyja director Haryadi Priyohutomo said the certification would push the company to work harder to provide better services to the city's residents. However, he said water leakage and water theft was making the task of delivering high-quality water harder.

"Palyja is currently losing 44 percent of its total water supply (to leakage and theft). Ideally losses would be between 25 and 27 percent," he said.

In Medan, North Sumatra, the regional water company (PDAM) has managed to keep water loss at 25 percent due to strict law enforcement.

Haryadi said water loss in Kuala Lumpur was at 32 percent, in Bangkok it was at 29 percent and in Manila it was at 28 percent.

In a press statement released Tuesday, TPJ claimed to have permanently disconnected 820 out of 1,156 illegal connections in the city and overcome 3,961 out of 5,397 illegal consumption cases.

When receiving the ISO award, Krieg said Palyja had ran several public awareness campaigns in cooperation with police in an effort to overcome water theft. (dre)