MAKASSAR: Kalla Group, a company owned by Former Vice President Jusuf Kalla, plans to develop a number of monorail projects in some areas with the first project will be constructing 20 miles monorail tracks in Makassar, South Sulawesi worth IDR2 trillion.Kalla Groups President Director Fatimah Kalla said the monorail project in Makassar will also be developed in other big cities, such as Surabaya in East Java and Bandung in West Java."Projects are our own initiative. Nevertheless, we will work with local governments to carry out the projects," he (she?) said last week.Kalla Group will sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the Makassar monorail project with the South Sulawesi provincial government of next week. The project is expected to start construction in in 2012 and it is expected to start commercial operation in 2014.According to Fatimah, monorails will be built in the cities that are experiencing severe traffic congestion."We will fully involve local business entities in the project, such as using products from PT Bukaka. We would make efforts to use Indonesian products as much as possible," said Fatimah.In addition to Surabaya and Bandung, Kalla Group does not rule out the possibility of offering a monorail project to the Jakartas government. Fatimah said she had previously offered the monorail project to Jakarta but there was no agreement to follow up the offer.Aside from the monorail projects, she said that Kalla also plans to build a hydropower plant in Toraja, South Sulawesi and in West Sulawesi.The planned hydro-power plants will be carried out after it nearly complete construction of a 185-MW hydropower plant in Poso, Central Sulawesi.Care for the environmentKalla prefers to build hydropower plant rather than steam power plant because of environmental concern. Poso hydropower has signed electricity sales agreement with the state utility firm PLN and is expected to start operation at the end of this year."We will gradually increase generating capacity of hydro power plant in Poso to 600 MW. Currently electricity demand in the Sulawesi is quite high, exceeding supply from PLN," she said.The groups next project will be construction of a hydropower plant Toraja which can generate 150 MW electricity and in West Sulawesi with a generating capacity of 300 MW. It will need $12 million of funds per 1 MW developed.Fatiumah said Kalla Group prefers to develop its own infrastructure projects rather than join the governments projects.(t03/msw)

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