JAKARTA— Association of Indonesian Logistics requested Ministry of Transportation to consider logistic efficiency level in designing blue print for revitalization of river transportation in the country.
Chair of Association, Zaldy Ilham Masita, said the demand is proposed following the plan by the Ministry to revitalize at least 117 rivers in Kalimantan, Sumatra, and Papua as a means of transportation for passengers and goods to reduce burden of land transportation.
He argued such consideration also aims at keeping up with the smoothness of goods flow and business interest in the revitalization program.
Basically, he supported the revitalization program.
In the blueprint currently being composed, the Ministry will use rivers to transport goods, i.e. crude mining products such as coal, and Palm Oil CPO.
Zaldy also suggests the Directorate General of Land Transportation, currently composing the blue print of the program to pay attention to more efficient vessel type.
“So far, barge and roll on-off vessels used on rivers are only transporting one kind of goods, i.e. coal. To make it more efficient, the vessels should be modified, meaning that it carries coal and leave with different goods upstream,” he said, Wednesday (3/19).
He wants the government to consider general cargo vessel to serve as river transportation to reach for logistic efficiency.
If the vessel arriving with goods and returning empty, it will cause inefficiency and money wasting.
Besides, the Ministry needs to provide incentive for operators of river transportation to modify their vessel so that it can serve as general cargo vessel.
Without this, he assumed the revitalization program will not contribute anything to improvement in logistic sector, whereas the sector kept growing by around 14% in 2013 and boosted GDP up to IDR1,500 trillion.
Apart from that, Director General of Land Transportation, Suroyo Alimoeso, said at the moment, the blue print is designed by consultants. The team drafts technical regulation on goods and passenger transportation.
“Soon it will be completed. To be implemented by 2015. While waiting for completion, we have revitalized some river docks in Kalimantan and some parts of Sumatra,” he said.
Once in 5 years, there will be some developmental activities such as traffic signs and docks. Later, a private party, acting as operator of river transportation will be urged to perform optimally.
In the blueprint, at least there are 117 rivers in Kalimantan, Sumatra, and Papua that will be revitalized as means of transportation.
At present, the team is drafting developmental priority in the first 5 years, second 5 years, etc. The drafting process will also include the total necessary budget.
