Cheap rice for poor families
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.