By: Raavi Ramadhan
The process of moving the country’s capital city has conducted a long study. The relocation of the capital will have an impact on progress in new areas and equitable development in other regions in Indonesia.
It should also be noted that the national capital will be moved from DKI Jakarta to Penajam Paser Utara Regency and Kutai Kartanegara Regency in East Kalimantan Province. The government has said that the relocation of the State Capital (IKN) will only begin in 2024. This relocation will be carried out in stages.
Minister of PPN / Head of Bappenas Suharso Monoarfa explained that the IKN master plan in East Kalimantan had been completed last year. Currently, the government is still working on the implementation of the transfer. Starting from the drainage, regional boundaries, the main point or core of the IKN construction covering an area of 5,600 hectares has been determined.
It’s just that, the process of preparing for relocation and construction is still limited due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The relocation of the IKN to East Kalimantan is also one of the steps for the government to improve the national economy.
Suharso said, with the construction and relocation of the IKN, it would lift economic growth and create up to 140 thousand jobs. However, the transfer and construction of the IKN will be carried out after Indonesia has achieved herd immunity.
He said that the government will wait for herd immunity for 15 months or in March 2022. Then we will get an estimate of how much vaccination must be done to be accelerated in order to drive mobilization. Thus, we dare to initiate this transfer.
The land to be built for the construction of the IKN in East Kalimantan is also inhabited land and does not need to be taken over by the government. In fact, people who are still living on IKN land must feel the positive impact of moving the IKN. So that the settlements on the land will be repaired and become part of the national capital.
The government also continues to accelerate the realization of moving the State Capital to Kalimantan Island. The President of the Republic of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, hopes to develop Indonesia through equitable infrastructure development and qualified and competitive Indonesian people.
The discourse on relocating the capital city is certainly not an idea yesterday afternoon nor an impromptu plan. The first President of the Republic of Indonesia, Ir. Soekarno, had previously put forward this idea and a study by Bappenas had been conducted on the impact of relocating the capital city.
The relocation of the National Capital also encourages equitable development, starting with the planning and implementation of its development which will have a tremendous positive economic impact on the nation through investment and trade channels that will contribute to growth in the region.
The transfer of IKN is also proof that the government is currently trying to build the country in an Indonesia-centric manner.
Especially with the increasingly congested condition on the island of Java and congestion in Jakarta, which has become a sign that the city of Jakarta is very congested, even riverbanks can become settlements where floods are almost every year.
For this reason, the central government is trying to find a replacement for the nation’s capital city, in addition to being safer from disasters, the new capital is also considered as an effort to distribute development in Indonesia.
If later Jakarta is no longer the capital city of Indonesia, it does not mean that business intensity in Jakarta will be sluggish, because the transfer of the capital is only for government affairs, both executive, legislative and judicial, while business affairs will remain in Jakarta.
Urban Sociology expert from the University of Indonesia (UI) Paulu Wirutomo said, if a city has approached congestion points that have seriously endangered people’s lives, then it is better to look for ways to spread it so that a city can develop again. According to him, the most effective population distribution strategy is to relocate the capital city.
The capital relocation plan also received support from the Independent Social Media Activist Forum (FPMSI). According to Hafyz as the FPMSI coordinator, moving the capital city of Indonesia will be part of the acceleration of improving the quality of human resources (human resources), increasing economic growth and equitable welfare distribution.
Moving the capital city is indeed the right thing to accelerate equitable development. So that this effort should be supported so that equitable development can be realized.
(The author is a contributor to the Pertiwi Institute)