JAKARTA: One of the world's most polluted rivers, the Citarum in Indonesia, is about to receive a massive cleanup that will improve the lives of millions of people, according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

The regional bank said it had agreed to provide a US$500-million multi-tranche loan package to support Indonesian government efforts to rehabilitate the strategic but horribly polluted river on Java island.

The loan, to be delivered in chunks of US$50 million over 15 years, is part of the government's US$3.5-billion plan to restore the Citarum and improve the lives of 28 million people who depend on it in some way.

ADB Senior Water Resources Engineer Christopher Morris said pollution levels in the river compromised public health, while the livelihoods of fishing families had been hit by the widespread death of fish.

"The Citarum River basin urgently needs improved management and significant infrastructure investments," he said.

"ADB's initial assistance will provide safe water supply and sanitation facilities for poor families who currently use water from the polluted canal for bathing, laundry and other uses.

"It will also allow the cultivation of an additional 25,000 hectares (62,000 acres) of paddy, benefiting 25,000 farming families."

He said the loans would bolster local efforts to integrate water management along the river, which stretches from Bandung in central West Java province to the capital Jakarta, some 160 kilometres (100 miles) to the northwest.

Once it reaches the capital it becomes a canal bubbling with industrial and household waste, which provides 80 per cent of the surface water supply to the city of 12 million people.

Along the way it is lined with hundreds of small-scale industries, only about 20 per cent of which are estimated to have waste water treatment programmes.

Dozens of villages also use the river as a place to dump their untreated sewage and household garbage.

Morris said the ADB and the Indonesian authorities would work together with local communities to try to "stop some of the behaviour" that makes the river a "dumping site for all the household waste."

This would involve small-scale projects to build sanitation facilities in villages along the river, as well as larger wastewater treatment plants.

"There's a direct correlation between a lack of water supply, and a lack of sanitation, and poverty in the Citarum River basin," Morris said.

"The communities with toilets and better water supply and the communities which are protected from flooding... are wealthier."

A health ministry survey published in The Jakarta Globe daily this week showed that 40 per cent of households in the country of 234 million people were not fitted with toilets.

It found that 25 per cent of households did not have a septic tank or other system for disposing of human waste, and only 73 per cent had garbage disposal facilities.

"Many Indonesians know about the importance of using clean water in their daily activities, but if they don't have access to it they have no other choice but to continue living the way they are," ministry official Wan Alkadri was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

"However there are still many Indonesians who ignore their hygiene even when they have access to clean water."

The dumping of solid domestic waste such as plastic bottles blocks drains and contributes to flooding that paralyses parts of Jakarta every wet season.

Morris said rapid urbanisation, climate change, environmental degradation, public health and food security were issues affecting not only the Citarum but rivers across Asia and the Pacific region.

- AFP/yb