Street vendors ready to occupy Block G

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Street vendors who passed the selection process to occupy the Block G building of Tanah Abang market in Central Jakarta were queuing up to get the keys to their kiosks on Monday.

Central Jakarta’s Small and Micro Business unit head Slamet Widodo said on Monday that the selected vendors would have until Tuesday to collect their keys and that 400 of 601 vendors had already got their keys.

As of Monday, many of the vendors were seen cleaning and painting their new kiosks.

“I wanted to give my stall a fresh look, so I chose to paint it green,” Khaeriah, 35, a vendor selling women’s clothing, said.

Another vendor, Amir, said that he was lucky that his stall was relatively clean, so he was able to load his goods immediately.

“I have started selling children’s clothing today, I hope I will get many customers as this block has been promoted through various media,” he said.

City-owned market operator company PD Pasar Jaya has provided 968 stalls at the Block G building — 1.5 square meters each — on the second and third floors to accommodate all street vendors and to prevent them from exacerbating traffic congestion in the area as ordered by the Jakarta administration.

The administration also renovated the block to attract street vendors. Now the block is clean and painted with fresh colors such as yellow, green and blue. The drainage system has been repaired and a slaughterhouse near the block has been demolished to create a parking space that can accommodate around 500 motorcycles.

Governor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo recently said that the city administration had spent about Rp 2 billion (US$ 184,366) to renovate Block G. The popularity of Block G as a new profitable location to sell goods in Tanah Abang has attracted a large amount of vendors, exceeding the number of available kiosks in the block.

Slamet said on Monday that the 342 vendors that had been selected in the second phase of the selection process would hold a lottery to determine the location of their kiosks on Aug. 28.

“All the vendors from the first and second selection phases should sign rental agreements with Pasar Jaya by Sept. 1,” he said.

Meanwhile, traffic in Tanah Abang had returned to its usual busy state on Monday. However, it was significantly smoother after the relocation of street vendors to the Block G building.

Street thugs who used to organize the traffic and asked money from drivers of public minivans were also nowhere to be seen. However, the absence of bus stops in the area caused discomfort for public transportation passengers.

Public minivans and buses for example, would slow down as they looked for passengers in front of Tanah Abang train station on Jl. Jati Baru. Some of them were moving at a snail’s pace as they expected to get more passengers on Jl. Kebon Jati and Jl. Jati Bunder, close to Tanah Abang shopping center.

Two officers from the Transportation Agency stood at the bend between Jl. Kebon Jati and Jl. Jati Bunder to manage the traffic. One of them used a rubber baton to hit the back of a public minivan that stopped for a while as the driver waited for two passengers to get in.

Agency head Udar Pristono said he planned to provide a bus stop in Tanah Abang, but had not decided on the location yet.

“We will place several bus stops there as soon as possible and reroute the public transportation,” he said on Monday.