"We are grateful that the mass wedding program, organized for the first time last year, has become a new tradition in celebrating New Year`s Eve in Jakarta," Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan noted at the Thamrin Parking Square, here, Monday evening.
New Year`s Eve will become a special day for the newly married couples, as it is celebrated worldwide, he pointed out.
The governor wished the couples to have happy, peaceful, and loving families.
AA Gym, a prominent Islamic figure, led prayers during the mass wedding ceremony.
The Jakarta governor presented a set of gifts and cash amounting to Rp500 thousand to each couple.
The mass ceremony was also highlighted with a bazaar offering products of small- and medium-scale industries from 44 sub-districts in Jakarta.
Meanwhile, the volume of trash during New Year`s Eve in Jakarta on Monday evening decreased significantly to 327 tons, from 740 tons during the 2017 New Year`s Eve, or a drop of 453 tons.
Isnawa Adji, head of the Jakarta Environmental Office, said the drastic drop indicated that the people were heedful of an appeal made by the Jakarta administration to celebrate New Year`s Eve modestly, as several people in other parts of Indonesia were mourning after being struck by natural disasters: earthquake, tsunami, flooding, and landslide.
At 4 a.m. local time on Tuesday, Jakarta was already clean, as 45 tons of trash was collected at the National Monument (Monas) area, 22 tons at the Hotel Indonesia (HI) Circle, and 26 tons along the Sudirman and Thamrin avenues.
Prior to the celebration, the Jakarta administration had distributed 10 thousand plastic bags to small vendors and urged them to collect trash and put them in certain places.
The Jakarta administration deployed 50 road sweepers to clean the capital city following the New Year`s Eve celebration.
Reporting by Dyah Dwi A, Fardah
Reporter: Antara
Editor: Fardah Assegaf
Copyright © ANTARA 2019
