Jakarta Only Owns 8 Units of Air Quality Monitoring Machine

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Indonesia's capital city, Jakarta, is listed as the most polluted city in the world by air quality forecaster AirVisual yet the city administration only owns eight units of air quality monitoring machine.

Acting chief of Jakarta Environmental Department Andono Warih admitted that the city needs 13 to 25 machines to monitor the air quality in the whole city; depends on the research approach.

"There are two approaches. Firstly, one machine per one million residents. There are 13 million residents in Jakarta, so [we need] 13 units," Andono told Tempo Saturday, July 6.

The second approach is based on the area. He went on, with the area covering 650 square kilometers, Jakarta needs around 25 air quality monitoring tools with a total of Rp125 billion in cost. "One machine is priced at around Rp5 billion," he said.

Andono explained that the city has been maximizing the use of the eight machines comprising two types; five permanent tools and three mobile machines.

The permanent machines are installed in Kota, Bundaran HI, Jagakarsa, Lubang Buaya, and Kebon Jeruk, while the mobile ones are set in different places; not installed in certain areas.

Governor Anies Baswedan has promised to add the machines, so the administration could get complete data about the city's air quality.

Air quality forecaster AirVisual evaluated Jakarta as the world’s worst polluted city after it scored an air quality index (AQI) of 208 on June 26. Following Jakarta, there are five other cities with the highest level of air pollution, namely Lahore in Pakistan, Hanoi in Vietnam, Dubai in United Arab Emirate, and Wuhan in China.

M Julnis Firmansyah

Read: Jakarta Scores Bad in Air Quality, Official: Not in Every Area