The current capital of Indonesia, Jakarta, is 40% below sea level, sinking about 7.5 centimeters on average per year.
The new administrative capital that Indonesia plans to build from scratch on the island of Borneo to replace Jakarta will be called Nusantara (translated as archipelago) after the country’s president, Joko Widodo, decided so, local media reported on Monday.
“I received a direct confirmation from the president on Friday and he said that the new capital will be called Nusantara,” National Development Planning Minister Suharso Monoarfa said during a meeting of the special committee for the construction of the new capital, local media reported. Kompas.
The minister agreed with the choice of name and justified it as being a well-known word with which Indonesians often refer to the Indonesian archipelago.
The Indonesian government announced in April 2019 the plan to move the country’s administrative capital from Jakarta to a more suitable location, choosing two districts in the eastern part of the island of Borneo.
The Parliament plans to approve the construction this month so that the works begin and the transfer of the capital begins in 2024 in the new city.
Construction affected by the pandemic
Construction should have started at the end of 2020, but it was postponed due to the covid-19 pandemic, of which Indonesia has been the most affected country in Southeast Asia, with more than 4.2 million cases and 144,000 deaths.
The transfer of the capital has been a recurring project of successive governments since the time of Sukarno, who ruled Indonesia between 1945 and 1967) and who then proposed the city of Palangkaraya, on the island of Borneo.
Jakarta, which is 40% below sea level, is sinking about 7.5 centimeters on average per year, according to the latest official estimates, although a sea dam is being built to stop the sinking.
The current capital, located in northwestern Java, has a population of about ten million people. (I)
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