Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – Residents in several parts of Java and the Indonesian capital are suffering from a water shortage – the result of a drought caused by the extremely dry El Nino season in the country.

Thousands of residents in parts of West Jakarta are being forced to buy water from private contractors because they do not have enough to wash clothes, clean or cook.

A Department of Mining and Energy official, Mr Muzahein Muhtar, said Jakarta's water shortage had reached dangerous levels.

Water supplied by public utilities such as PT Pam Lyonnaise Jaya, which services about 50 per cent of Jakarta city, has slowed to a trickle. In parts of south Jakarta, thousands of residents have had running water for only a few morning hours over the past two months.

An official from PT Pam Lyonnaise Jaya said the shortage was due to low water levels at the main dam in Jatiluhur, West Java. Due to the drought, more and more farmers in West Java were using water from this dam for irrigation, said the official. Some farmers were even breaking into pipes owned by PT Pam Lyonnaise Jaya and redirecting some of the water to their farms, she said.

Much of the water has become so polluted from chemicals and household waste that it cannot be cleaned.

Thousands of precious farms in rural Java have been affected by the drought. In West Java's Cirebon and Indramayu, at least 14,000 ha of farm land have been hit, while in central Java at least 11 districts are suffering.

Amid the current water woes, experts are predicting that Jakarta, and cities such as Semarang and Surabaya, will suffer from a severe water crisis in the next 10 years unless the government puts the brakes on deforestation and develops better policies for the collection and storage of water.

State Minister for the Environment Nabiel Makarim said: "Deforestation and excessive water consumption have worsened the water deficit. If deforestation is not stopped, and water consumption continues to increase, the water deficit will worsen in the coming years." He pointed out that the northern coastal areas already had water shortages for four months of the year.

He said the authorities in Jakarta needed to draw up plans urgently about how to collect water from surrounding water catchment areas such as Bogor, a mountain town 60 km from Jakarta which has a high annual rainfall.