Cheap rice for poor families

Fitri Wulandari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government on Saturday launched two national food aid programs for the poor.

The National Food Aid Program for Poor Families was launched in conjunction with the 21st World Food Day commemoration at Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (TMII) theme park.

The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has adopted "Fight Hunger to Reduce Poverty" as the central theme for this year's World Food Day, which falls on Oct. 16.

The programs consist of, respectively, the provision of subsidized rice to poor families, or Raskin, which will take effect in 2002 and a food aid project for the poor initiated by the State Logistics Agency (Bulog) in Bekasi regency, West Java.

Under Raskin, recipients will get the rice basically for free. They will only be required to pay a transport fee of Rp 84 per kilogram of rice they receive.

The programs were inaugurated by Vice President Hamzah Haz.

Bulog chief Widjanarko Puspoyo said the pilot project in Bekasi was an aid program to tackle poverty, food shortages and malnutrition by involving the local government and the people.

"With this pilot project, the government hopes to formulate a good program which can be implemented by other regions to tackle the poverty problem," Widjanarko said.

Raskin 2002, Widjanarko said, was designed to replace a previous program called the Special Market Operation for Rice and the Effect of Energy Subsidy Reduction Prevention Program (PPD- PSE).

According to the Bulog chief, the government has allocated Rp 4.7 trillion ($4.7 million). It will be used to procure 2.35 million tons of rice to be distributed to 9,79 million families.

The Minister of Home Affairs, the National Family Planning Coordinating Board (BKKBN), and the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) are working on the distribution of rice allocated to the provinces.

To make sure that the rice aid reaches its target, Bulog will use data from the BKKBN and supervise its distribution.