600,000 families to be resettled by 1999

600,000 families to be resettled by 1999

JAKARTA (JP): The government plans to complete resettling
600,000 families by the end of the current sixth Five-Year
Development Plan period in 1999, an official says.

H.J. Widarbo Ruslan, the director general of resettlement at
the Ministry of Transmigration, said that the resettlers comprise
350,000 families who would be fully sponsored by the government,
along with 250,000 "self-sponsored" families who will receive
limited government assistance.

"The trend of migration is still from western Indonesia to the
eastern part," he told a press conference at his office in South
Jakarta here yesterday.

A number of new settlement sites would be opened in Irian
Jaya, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and Sumatra islands, he said.

Indonesia launched its transmigration program in 1971. Since
then, it has resettled more than 14 million people from the
densely populated islands of Java, Madura and Bali to more
sparsely populated islands around the country.

For the 1996/97 fiscal year, the ministry has set a target of
resettling 111,414 families, including 55,000 families who would
be fully sponsored by the government and 35,000 "self-sponsored"
families, Widarbo said.

Official data shows that 90,000 families have already been
resettled in the current fiscal year.

Widarbo also said that the government has established a
working group to study the feasibility of its program to open up
new settlement areas on Siberut Island off West Sumatra.

The working group includes officials from related ministries,
including the Ministry of Transmigration and the office of state
minister of environment, he said.

Minister of Transmigration Siswono Yudohusodo had announced in
February that the government would resume its program to open up
new settlement areas on Siberut Island, in an effort to bring the
largely backward island into the fold of modern civilization.

The project was shelved in the 1980s because of strong
objections from environmental groups, who were concerned about
the impact the settlers' presence might have on the islanders.

Siswono has said President Soeharto agreed to revive the plan
to send settlers to Siberut, one of the Mentawai Islands in the
Indian Ocean, but underlined the need to pay heed to the
environmental aspects of the program. (01)