Until early 2018, 338 houses in RW 5, 6, and 23 in Semanggi urban village did not have access to PDAM water. The houses are located in slum areas and the community could not afford building new PDAM regular connection which costs at least Rp1.5 million per house.
To help these people access PDAM water, Disperum KPP Surakarta city, with support from USAID IUWASH PLUS, built master meter systems in these RWs using the 2018 APBD amounting to Rp751 million. The master meter systems were built from August to November 2018, and they are connected to 22 houses in RW 5, 100 houses in RW 6, and 200 houses in RW 23, while the remaining 16 houses will be connected this year.
Master meter is a communal water supply system in which the PDAM builds a master meter on PDAM’s main pipe and the community builds a distribution pipe network and house connections from the master meter as well as maintaining and managing the system.
To sustain the master meter system, Disperum KPP engaged USAID IUWASH PLUS to establish and train a care-taker group in each RW on the master meter operation, maintenance, and management, including water tariff calculation, so that they are able to sustain the master meter system.
“Before using master meter, I spent more than Rp200,000 a month to purchase water for drinking and cooking only, and used water from a public pump to get water for bathing and laundry. With master meter, I can use the water from the tap at home for any purposes and spend Rp50,000 to Rp75,000 a month,” said Ibu Agus, a beneficiary in RW 06.
Seeing the benefits of the master meter system, Disperum KPP decided to expand the program to RT 2 and 4 in RW 9 in Setabelan urban village after participating in the Surakarta city stakeholder meeting held in Setabelan on February 7, 2019.
In that meeting, the participatory monitoring and evaluation team from Setabelan urban village explained that 70 houses in RT 2 and 4 in RW 9 do not have access to PDAM water and cannot afford to pay for the new PDAM connection fee. Disperum KPP will allocate Rp135 million from its 2019 APBD to build the master meter systems for all these 70 houses.
Similar to that in Semanggi urban village, Disperum KPP, with assistance from USAID IUWASH PLUS, also established and trained a care-taker group for RT 2 and 4 with the master meter operation, maintenance, and management skills in June 2019. In July 2019, the care taker group started building distribution house connections using their own fund to the master meter system with supervision from Disperum KPP.
“Master meter is effective to provide piped water to the community who cannot access PDAM water through regular connections so that they do not need to spend more for water or look for other unsafe water access. I hope this program could be expanded to other areas in Surakarta city that have a critical need of PDAM water,” said Saryanta, the Head of Housing and Settlement Division of Disperum KPP.
Available in 
