Jakarta. Indonesia's new capital Nusantara in East Kalimantan is still very much a work in progress, with the construction of its overall infrastructure about 14 percent complete.

The government aims to celebrate the country’s 79th independence day in Nusantara. And to date, there are 31 infrastructure projects, including toll roads, drainage, and the state palace, that are currently in progress, according to the Public Works Ministry. 

“The progress of the overall infrastructure has reached 14 percent and aligns with three principles, namely quality, aesthetics, and environmental sustainability,” Public Works Minister Basuki Hadimuljono during a site visit to Nusantara over the weekend.

The government will forbid overloaded trucks from passing by the government's main area. This 6,596-hectare area dedicated to government buildings will source its water from the Sepaku River intake infrastructure, which is expected to have a capacity of 3,000 liters per second. Reports showed that works on the Sepaku Semoi Dam and the Sepaku Intake have both topped 80 percent.

The Public Works Ministry also recently announced that 16 projects related to road and bridgeworks, with a budget ceiling totaling Rp 10.73 trillion (about $712.3 million), were also underway. 

Nine of these projects, which cost not more than Rp 8.75 trillion, are within the larger Nusantara area. Seven others are located within the city's government zone and have a budget ceiling of Rp 1.97 trillion.

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The Transport Ministry has allotted Rp 15.87 billion this year for land transport in the planned city. About Rp 9.77 billion will go to 11 related projects. They will allocate the remaining Rp 6.1 billion to build Balikpapan-Nusantara integrated transport services, according to the ministry’s director-general for land transport Hendro Sugiatno.

The government is in the process of building three toll roads totaling 27 kilometers outside the government zone, although progress is still "below 5 percent".

“There is one that has reached 6 percent, but others are still at 2 percent and even 1 percent because this has only been two months,” Danis Sumadilaga, the chief of the Nusantara infrastructure taskforce, said. 

Nusantara will have nine toll road segments spanning 75.62 kilometers to be built. Indonesia aims to have four of these segments —namely the 3A, 3B, 5A, and 6 sections— by 2024, the same year as the first phase of the capital relocation. The rest of the segments, including the 8.35-kilometer Sepinggan Airport-Balsam toll section, are expected to finish after 2024. 

The government to this day is still reviewing the 12.01-kilometer 5B toll road section, which would connect the Balang Island bridge with the VVIP airport.

“We are proposing the 5B segment, but we are still unsure. So we will just use the existing toll roads as long as the 5B segment is still not there yet,” Hedy Rahadian, the director general for roadworks at the Public Works Ministry, said.

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has instructed that it should only take 30 minutes to go from Balikpapan’s Sultan Aji Muhammad Sulaiman Sepinggan airport to Nusantara. Hedy said that the best possible route would span 47 kilometers.

“We will build a toll road from the airport to Manggar, to section 5 of Balsam, of about seven kilometers. At the tenth kilometer, it would go straight to Simpang Tempadung, through Kariangau,” Hedy said.

The toll road would go through an immersed tunnel that crosses a strait and into an area near the palace.

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