CONSOLIDATION OF THE PTT DEPARTMEN
1. The general situation of the PTT Departmen
a. challenges and methods of facing them
At the beginning of 1950 when the war of independence ended, the Indonesian PTT turned over a new page in its history. As a result of the scorched earth policy and the guerrilla fighthing, hundreds of kilometers of telegrafh and telephone networks had been cut. In several areas there had been no posts since the dutch military attacks because bus and train services had stopped. A lot of telecommunications equipment had been damaged, lost or was already old such as the transmitters wich had been moved and then used for the independence war struggle. Meanwile the struggle during the war of independence had claimed not a few victims with the falling of the heroes and champions of the national cause including heroes of PTT i.e. PTT employees who feel in defending independence and carrying out their duties. This situation was a challenge which PTT had to face in several areas at the beginning of 1950.
The shortage of employees, particularly managers and skilled manpower was keenly felt. Another factor was the existence of employees with the status “non” and those with the status “co” plus salary systems based on PGP 1948 (the 1948 salary regulation) and those based and BBL (Bezoldigingsregeling voor Burgerlijke Landsdienaren) /BAG (Bezoldigingsregeling voor Ambtenaren en Gepensioneerden) (salary and pension regulations made by the former Dutch Government)
The damaged offices and the broken cables had to be repaired. The in crease in postal. Telegraph and telephone communications due to the restoration of peace and security after the recognition of Indonesia’s sovereignty had to be taken into account.
The problems were solved in a relatively short time because:
1) both the leadership and the employees were inspired with a spirit of enthusiasm to build up the country, for their souls had been trained by the severe discipline of the recently-finished independence war.
2) The tolerance shown by “non” and “co” employees was great and thus this problem did not drag on.
3) The form of the administration was very good and thus hardly any alterations were required.
4) The archives and documentation over tens of year were in most cases still intact. Similarly the personnel files consisting of registers and employee card which has been taken on the flight to yogyakarta in 1946 were 90% intact and could be brought back to bandung. Thus the PTT department was the only department in wich the administration of personnel was still intact and relatively good.
Other factors which influenced the developments within the PTT department apart from the more extensive communications with other countries after the recognition of sovereignty were:
1) The extensive opening of trading links between village communities and towns.
2) The even spread of education right into the isolated corners of Indonesia.
3) Urbanisation wich increased trading communications between cities.
These three facts had a great influence on the development of postal communications in Indonesia. With the extensive opening of village communities to trading lnks with towns, the great need for accurate, direct and two way communications between the two groups was felt strongly. The PTT department strove to meet the increased demand created by these developments.
Community education which had spread rapidly since the recognition of indonesia’s sovereignty increased community consciousness concerning the use of government bodies designed for the community. The PTT department , most of whose services are organised and directed basically towards serving the public was thus inevitably influenced by this trend and, in order to provide as good a service as possible to the public, postal, telegraph and telephone communications had to be extended and developed. As far as possible the PTT department engaged in extensions and development of its services in order to meet community demand.
Even though the development of PTT did not run as smoothly as hoped , concreate achievements were recorded every year. For example in 1953 no less than 40 new offices were opened to the public. This figure includes posts, telegraph and telephone offices. Postal communication, particularly outside java and madura were extended and modern equipment began to be used for the improvement of telegraph and telephone communication.
In order to immortalise and commemorate the services and sacrifice of the PTT heroes who feel during the war of independence a memorial was erected in the front grounds of the PTT headquarters In bandung.the foundation stone for this memorial was laid on 27 th September 1952.
The name of some of the PTT heroes over the period from 1945 to 1949 were inscribed on this memorial along with the poem of chairil anwar:
“we are only scattered bones but we belong to you. It is you who will determine the value of these scattered bones.
-whether we gave our lives for indevendence, victory and hope or for nothing at all is for you to decide. We no longer speak but we speak to you in the stillness of lonely nights. When you feel empty and the clock is ticking remember, remember us let our souls live on through you.”
The PTT heroes memorial was unveiled by the head of the PTT department, R. soekardan, on 17 th August 1953.
Postal, telegraph and telephone traffic increased. The number of letters, post cards, letter cards, postal parcels and money orders increased. In 1953 the volume of domestic telegraphs was 4% higher than in the previous year. At the end of 1953 there were 65,000 telephone connection. This was greater than the pre-war figure of 55,000.
The events of septenber 1953 in aceh inevitably had an effect on the operaions of PTT services in that area. Postal, telegraph and telephone communications with various places in this area were broken. A lot of PTT equipment was lost or damaged. There were even some PTT employees who lost their lives. During this incident led by tengku daud beureuh which proclaimed aceh as a part of the Indonesian Islamic state, kartosuwirjo, there were 6 PTT employees from the aceh area who were kidnapped by groups of outlaws and their fate is not known with any certainty.
Events such as these indirectly constituted a hindrance to the smooth running of the PTT department as a whole. In spite of problems such as these 1 sub post office and 10 auxiliary post offices were opened and 3 auxiliary post offices were raised in status to posts and telegraph offices
The shortage of both space and employees was also felt in post offices.Due to a shortageof funds it was not possible to overcome these shortage in accordance with demand and the developments within postal traffic.the result was veri crowded offices and a staff complement which was below requirements.
Demand for postal equipment could not be met it should.in most cases this was due to a purchase procedure which was very lengthy.The long period of time taken to meet orders for mail bags and uniforms created in problems in mail dispatch and delivery and affected the atmosphere among employees. However, certain actions were taken to overcome these problems temporarily in the period of waiting for the arrival of the desired equipment.The making of office requirements at the main PTT WORKSHOP ran smoothly and thus demand for equipment such as date stamp pads, post office boxes for registered letters, various types of weighing scales, post box doors, date stamps, badges and the like could be meet on time.
From 26th to 30th april 1954 a department conference was organised in bandung between the manajement of the PTT department and the heads of posts and telegraph inspection areas(Kispos),the heads of telecommunications inspections areas(Kistel), the heads of radio inspection areas (kisrad) and heads of divisions in the headquarters. At this department conference problems such as pensions fpr older employees, equipment, housing, uniforms, training etc. were discussed.
This conference produced a statement which called government attention to PTT department requirements and appointed a delegation consisting of there people (the head of PTT, R. soekardan, the head of telecommunications inspection area I, tan tek bouw) to fass on this statement to the central government via the minister for communications.
1955 was a very busy year for the PTT department as several important events which required communication, both in the transportation field and in the news field, took place in Indonesia. As well as this, demands relating to the everyday organization of the department increased. The important events referred to are the asia-afrika conference and the first general election for members of the people’s representative council and members of the konstituante. For these extremely important and historic events good communication facilities were required and the PTT department played the most important role in meeting these requirement. During the asia-afrika conference held in bandung from 18th to 24th April 1955 a 12-channel shortwave radio system was installed between bandung and Jakarta in order to meet the demand for smooth communication of news. As well as this special radio telephone links were opened with participating countries such as links between bandung-cairo. Bandung-karachi, bandung-shanghai/peking and so on.
Those given the responsibility for smooth telecommunications at this asia-afrika conference were :
1) 1.F. leiwakabessy, as the communications officer entrusted with the smooth running of the sound system.
2) M.K.M. Mangoendiprodjo, who was responsible for the telegraph and telex system .
3) Tan Peng Yang, who was responsible for the automatic telephone system.
The organization of communications for the asia-afrika conference involved a staff of 500, including operators and translator. Communications were organized successfully.
In order to improve the PTT department’s services to the community, development work continued in the telephone, telegraph and postal divisions. Postal communications were extended to the most remote areas.
In order to facilitate telegraph communications in isolated areas a lot of telegraph and telephone communications were replaced by morse. Exactly on the 10th anniversary of the PTT RI department on 27th September 1955, the installation of the “pancar daya” transmitting station in kaliangke was inaugurated. The laying of the foundation stone for the new building for the batucaper receiving station also took place in 1955. the automisation of the magelang, Surabaya Darmo. Jakarta and palembang telephone offices was also planned in that year.
With the completion of the receiving station at batu ceper, the Jakarta coastal radio station radio receiving station located in the middle of merdeka square moved to batu ceper. This batuceper radio station was officially opened on 20th September 1956.
In commemorating its 11th anniversary on 27th September 1957 the PTT department also contributed something worthwhile to the country. This worthwhile contribution consisted of the laying of the first foundation stone for the new buildings for the automisation of telephone communications in bukittinggi, malang and tanjungpriok; the latter of these was the beginning of moves to wards the automisation of all Jakarta raya.
Through the improvement of trunk and interinsular telephone communication the number of call increased but the amount of revenue received drooped. This fact indicates that the possibility of holding normal conversations had in creased and thus the need to request urgent conversations had dropped. This was an encouraging sign as it indicated that the service offered by the PTT department was succeeding in meeting public demand for postal and telecommunications service.
However, the problems and challenges being faced by the PTT department continued to be many. Attempts to develop and extend services were continued in spite of the problems being faced.
I march 1956 the PTT department held a conference in bandung which had the aim of moving towards the solution of some of the PTT departments problems through further discussion of steps to be taken to improve the implementation of the department’s responsibilities as a medium of communication for the community and the government. This conference was attended by heads of department, heads of divisions in the headquarters and heads of telecommunication regions throughout Indonesia. It was at this conference that the director-general of PTT for the first time officially proposed that the status of the PTT department be altered.
At the time the PTT department was a government-owned company on the basis of I.B.W. (indonesische bedrijven wet-indonesian corporation laws). As an I.B.W. company the PTT department had only one source of capital for the contruction of new offices and new installations and the replacement of old equipment i.e.the government . as the demand for capital was closely tied to the state’s financial position, it is understandable that even though capital requirements were very high due to increase in community demand for PTT services, the additional capital received by the department was not comparable to in creased needs. The state’s financial capacity frequently did not permit the transfer of sufficient funds to PTT.
Thus PTT services offered the community were not meeting the desired targets. Extremely crowded offices, a waiting list of tens of thousands of request. For telephone connections were among the results of a shortage of capital in the PTT department .
If the PTT department continued to have the status of an I.B.W. company, there couldbe no hope of obtaining the additional capital needed within the near future. Money needed for the development of the country and the community in general continued tobe high and there was no hope of obtaining adequate money is funds needed for more vital community and state development projects were still enormously high. Thus it was necessary to find another way of obtaining the caital required.
To open thev way for the exploration of other capital resources, the status of the PTT department as an I.B.W.company needed to be changed. The most appropriate status and that which could most easily satisfy the requirements of the PTT department was that of “public corporation”. Even though the status of public corporation was still rare in indonesia, there were many companies overseas with this status.
In order to increase employees’ general knowledge, a library was opened in bandung which contained books on topics such as posts, tehnical maters, telecommunication, sociologi, general economic, company economic, labour, religion, politics, law and civics. Some of these books were written inindonesian, some in foreign languages such as English, French, german and dutch. Preparations were made to open libraries in posts and telegraph regions, and in telecommunications regions. Books were gradually sent from the PTT headquarters in bandung.
Several noteworthy events related to the PTT department in 1957 included:
-the decision on the reorganization of the PTT department as of 1st January 1957
-the appointment of R. soekardan, the director-general of PTT as minister for communication in the work cabinet of 9th april 1957 and the appointment of R. samdjoen as acting director of PTT as of 10th april 1957 as well as director of telecommunications.
During the rehabilitation centre seminar in solo, morse communications between semarang and solo were replaced by teleprinter communications up until 7th September 1957. when the national converence was held in the proclamation building in No.56 east pegangsaan street teleprinter communications were installed between the Jakarta telegraph office and the proclamation building from 8th to 17th September inclusive.
The organization of postal services was extremely difficult in 1958. one of the problems being faced was the interinsuler transportation of posts as K.P.M vessels stopped operating in Indonesian waters as a result of the west irian freedom action which was launched at the beginning of December 1957. PELNI and other national shipping companies were not able to take over 100% the position of K.P.M in indonesia’s shipping services. The same problem arose with airline services as K.L.M. flights to Indonesia were also stopped. In 1957 and 1958 dutch-owned companies in Indonesia were nationalized by the Indonesian government.
Then the P.R.R.I. and PERMESTA rebellions which broke out in February 1958 caused great loss to the PTT department both in the form of equipment and buildings which were
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