Using umbrellas and wearing coats, people queue to get their e-ID card printed at the Home Ministry stand at the Nusantrara Expo and Forum 2017 event in the Keong Mas Theater, Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, as rain falls, Jakarta, Friday (20/10). Thousands of people from Jakarta and its surrounding cities are prepared to queue for hours to receive this service.
JAKARTA, KOMPAS – Thousands of people queue for hours at the yard of the Imax Keong Emas Theater, Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Jakarta, Friday (20/10), for the sake of getting an electronic identity card (e-ID). There, they can have their e-ID card printed in just two days. Most of the people in the queue have been waiting in vain for their e-ID card for years.
From 09:00 a.m. until 03:00 p.m., the people stand in a long and winding line in the yard of the Imax Keong Emas Theater, TMII, which has temporarily been transformed into four halls where the Nusantara Expo is held. Most of the people are standing, while others are seen sitting down in the queue in the Keong Emas corridor and the Keong Emas corner park. The uncertain weather, sometimes showing heavy rain and dark clouds, other times extremely hot, does not discourage them.
One of the people in the queue was Trisye Afrianti, 37, from Cipayung, East Jakarta. She and her husband recorded their personal data at the subdistrict office four years ago. However, as of this moment, her e-ID card has not been printed.
“At the moment, we do not have e-ID cards, we were given a replacement letter, the validity period of which is only six months. So for four years, I have been going back and forth to the subdistrict office to extend it,” Trisye said with her child sitting on her lap at the Keong Emas yard.
“Yesterday, when I was about to extend the letter of replacement at the subdistrict office, I was told that I could make an e-ID card and have it immediately printed in TMII.”
The Home Ministry’s director of civil registry and population (Dukcapil), Zudan Arif, said that his directorate would open an e-ID recording stand at the Nusantara Expo event in Jakarta from Wednesday to Sunday (18-22 October). On the third day of the event, the interest of the public that wanted to have their e-ID card printed appeared to be extremely high. “In a day, 2,000-3,000 people record and print e-ID cards,” he said.
Since 08:00 a.m., Trisye and his husband queued to submit their letter of reference and family card (KK) to the Dukcapil officials. However, as of 11:00 a.m., they have not moved much from their position in the queue, still standing around 1 kilometer away from the officials’ table under the blazing hot sun.
Winda Alienda, 26, from Cijantung, East Jakarta, came before 06:00 a.m. and immediately got into the queue. The mother of one, who has also been waiting for her e-ID card to be made at the subdistrict office, managed to get a queue number for the e-ID card retrieval after six hours of waiting. However, she still needed to come back the next day to get the printed e-ID card.
“I hope that in the future, e-ID cards can be directly printed at the subdistrict office without having to wait for long. Having to queue for long like this wastes time,” Winda said.
Started off as hoax
Zudan said that initially the event was only meant to serve as data recording for the people. Based on data from the Home Ministry, there are still around 7 million people nationwide that have not had their data recorded. “So there was false reports that spread in the public saying that they could directly get e-ID cards after carrying out data recording here,” he said.
The data that is recorded needs to first go through a data verification process before it is printed. Zudan said that there was still data from 4 million individuals that still needed to go through this process.
“The people that can get it straight away are those whose e-ID cards were lost or damaged. So those people whose data was already there, they can have it replaced straight away,” Zudan said.
Most of the people receive information about making e-ID cards in TMII from chain messages that spread through online short-message application groups. Atikoh Hernadi, 42, from Babelan, Bekasi regency, was one of those people. He traveled 40 kilometers on his motorcycle to TMII after getting information on a WhatsApp group.
“I wanted to change the marriage status on my e-ID card, which is different to the one in my KK,” he said. Because of this difference between the two cards, Atikoh was refused a motorcycle purchase loan.
Print in subdistrict
Even though many people misunderstood the service provided, the Dukcapil Direktorate General still served the thousands of people hoping to get their e-ID cards printed. Zudan deployed 70 officials at their letter of reference and KK submission desk, data recording desk and e-ID printing desk. Furthermore, there were 10 units of e-ID card printing equipment divided into two groups, one for residents of Jakarta, the other for those from outside of Jakarta.
He added that there were no targets and limits for people looking to get the e-ID card service in this event. For those that already have single data, the printing process only takes two days.
Jakarta Civil Registry and Population Agency (Disdukcapil) head Edison Sianturi said that there were 39,000 Jakarta residents that did not record their data, which is 0.51 percent of the 7.6 million people of Jakarta that must have an e-ID card.
In TMII, the on-duty officials are officials from the Jakarta Disdukcapil and the Home Ministry. They are tasked with providing explanations to the people that come. Friday’s data showed that there are 697 letters belonging to residents that cannot be printed because their data was not yet confirmed.
If it has been confirmed and a letter has been handed out that states the card is ready for printing, the individuals can print their e-ID cards at the subdistrict office.
Home Ministry spokesperson Arief M. Edie said that the purpose of opening up a stand was to provide a public service to the people that have not received an e-ID card. The people can see and control the e-ID card-making process.
Arief asked the regional administration to open an e-ID card-recording service on Saturdays and Sundays to make it more easily accessible for people who are busy on weekdays. This request is in accordance with the Home Ministry’s circular on the e-ID card recording service.
Specifically, in TMII, in order to make it easier for the people, there will be changes to the e-ID card service. Dukcapil will provide a few document boxes for the people of Jakarta and those from outside of Jakarta. “Tomorrow, the people that submit their letter of reference and KK only need to put them in the box and no longer need to queue,” he said.
The submission of documents and data recording will end on Saturday. On Sunday (22/10), the Dukcapil will only serve e-ID retrievals.
