JAKARTA (Antara): President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono ordered authorities in the Greater Jakarta to design a concrete program to mitigate annual floods in the region, which often killed many people and damaged houses, properties and infrastructures.
"We need a joint serious effort to mitigate floods," he was quoted by Antara news agency as saying in sideline of his visit to flood victims in Bekasi municipality Sunday.
This year flooding killed at least 20 people across the Greater Jakarta -- Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Bekasi, and Tangerang -- and displaced about 200,000 others. Water also inundated railway tracks and damaged other infrastructures.
Massive flooding in the capital is frequently also sparked by heavy rains in the upper areas -- Depok and Bogor -- as water from the areas flowed to the city through Ciliwung River.
The president told the local administrations in the Greater Jakarta to immediately draft the plan and to calculate the cost of flood infrastructure.
Regional autonomy is blamed for the difficulty to design integrated flood mitigation projects because each administration in the Greater Jakarta has its own plan.
The Jakarta city administration often blamed authorities in upper areas for excessive use of lands in their territories for housings and other facilities, which cause serious damage of green areas, needed to be maintained for water conservation.
Meanwhile, authorities in the upper areas said Jakarta has to give compensation for lands in their respected territories, which should be maintained for water conservation.
So far, there has been no institution in the central administration, which has power and wish to mediate their disputes.
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