Liputan6.com, Jakarta - The construction of Jakarta-Bandung High Speed Railway immediately invites two opposing opinions among general population with one side claiming to be satisfied with such promising progress towards a much more developed national infrastructure and the other arguing about the drawbacks of having such infrastructure mode of transportation present.
An economic and political expert from the Indonesian Economic and Politics Association Salamuddin Daeng is one among those who severely criticized the construction of Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed railway. He firmly believes that such development would only hamper the improvement of people’s welfare, especially ones residing in Jakarta area.
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“Government should have reconsidered having a fast train railway. Why do we need to have a high speed railway especially with its investment relatively expensive. People then have to pay for it and carry the burden,” he explained to Liputan6.com, Jakarta, Friday (29/1/2016).
According to him, the investment is valued up to US$ 5,5 billion and due to such relatively high price, it has been informed that the high speed railway management will increase the price of the passenger ticket.
People will initially be charged Rp 200 thousand for one way ticket in the first year of the high speed railway operation. The price will be increased to Rp 400 thousand in the following year.
"Price hike is inevitable in this particular circumstance as they need to cover the investment price that is relatively expensive in the very first place. Surely they will take into account Internal Rate of Return (IRR) from the initially invested US$ 5,5 billion. It is very likely that consumers are the ones given the burden of covering those expenses made by the government," he further explained.