INDONESIA: DJAKARTA'S POPULATION CONTINUES TO GROW AT RATE OF ALMOST SIX PERCENT A YEAR -- TOO QUICKLY FOR GOVERNMENT TO BE ABLE TO COPE WITH ENSUING PROBLEMS.

Record ID: 584534

  • Title: INDONESIA: DJAKARTA'S POPULATION CONTINUES TO GROW AT RATE OF ALMOST SIX PERCENT A YEAR -- TOO QUICKLY FOR GOVERNMENT TO BE ABLE TO COPE WITH ENSUING PROBLEMS.
  • Date: 23rd August 1976
  • Summary: 1. GTV City of Djakarta 0.06 2. GV Cars on highway and entering city (2 shots) 0.22 3. GV Street vendors and crowd in street (2 shots) 0.34 4. SV People boarding bus 0.40 5. GV Fishing fleet in harbour with men on boats 0.50 6. SV, CU Labourers at fish market waiting for work (2 shots) 1.00 7. SV Men carrying baskets into market 1.07 8. SV INTERIOR with people shopping (2 shots) 1.18 9. SV, CU Men making artificial flowers 1.30 10. SV People shopping in open vegetable market 1.38 11. GTV Houses in Djakarta 1.42 Initials OS/1640 Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 7th September 1976 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: DJAKARTA, INDONESIA
  • Country: Indonesia
  • Reuters ID: LVA2UWDFIZWEJA291ZIGBX4G9GPG
  • Story Text: The Indonesian capital of Djakarta is currently enforcing a "closed city" policy in an attempt to reduce the city's spectacular growth rate.

    SYNOPSIS: The latest estimates show that the population increases by a staggering six percent each year and that by 1990 it will have doubled to reach 12 million. Most of the increase is attributed to illegal arrivals from the countryside. People without official residence permits are taken by the police if discovered and transported outside the urban limits.

    Settlements inhabited by squatters are springing up and most have no electricity, sewerage or garbage services. Residents have to buy water off street vendors. Yet each year some 150,000 people are prepared to tolerate these conditions for the chance of work, education for their children, and medical care if they can afford it. Many are drawn to Djakarta by dreams of quick wealth by locally-made films showing the lives of a limousine-owning minority. Most end up queuing for work at about a dollar an hour.

    Djakarta's administration began the closed city policy in 1970. But it has had little effect. It gives Djakarta-born citizens priority in housing, schooling and work. The administration now advocates transmigration, the Indonesian government policy of moving people from Java to other underdeveloped parts of the republic. But this costs the state or the city about a thousand dollars a family and Djakarta can't afford it. The city administration is also running various schemes, subsidised by the World Bank, to improve living conditions for locally born residents.

    Djakarta began as a trading port in the 15th century. It was planned for its pre-war population of about half a million people. Now it's a city that is growing too fast for its own good with a population exceeding five million.
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