Indramayu to build giant dam to increase rice production

Moch. N. Kurniawan and Novan Iman Santosa, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta/Indramayu, West Java

Officials from Indramayu and the central government are planning to construct the Jatigede dam to solve farmers' irrigation woes by bringing much-needed relief from annual droughts and floods to the area.

They said the construction of the irrigation dam was aimed at functioning as a water reservoir so that agricultural development programs would be able to continue throughout the dry and rainy seasons.

"The dam will supply water to farmland during the dry season and collect rainwater during the rainy season," Abdul Mutholib, head of the local irrigation office, told The Jakarta Post recently.

Located in the northern lowlands of West Java, Indramayu is hit by floods during the rainy season and suffers from severe droughts during the dry season.

The latest data shows that some 8,000 hectares out of 110,000 hectares of rice fields have had crop failures, with another 4,700 hectares severely hit by the current drought.

Although the regency has long since supplied water from the Rentang reservoir and the Jatiluhur Dam, it was not able to meet the current demand for large farms in the regency.

Abdul Mutholib said the Jatigede dam's planned construction was sorely needed to solve water supply problems in the regency's central and eastern areas.

"The Jatigede dam will be able to irrigate an additional 53,000 hectares of farmland, which had relied on rainwater during the dry season, and enable farmers to harvest two or even three times a year.

"On the other hand, the dam will retain water and prevent floods during the rainy season," he said, adding that the new dam was expected to be able to help boost rice production to 950,000 tons per year from the current 787,000.

A similar view was also shared by the director general of water resources at the Ministry of Resettlement and Regional Infrastructure, Roestam Syarief.

"Constructing the Jatigede dam is technically the best alternative in overcoming the annual droughts and floods," he said.

Indramayu is one of the three largest rice-producing regencies in West Java, with each producing more than 300,000 tons of rice a year. The two other regencies are Karawang and Subang. In turn, West Java is Indonesia's largest rice belt.

While agreeing on the irrigation project's technical importance of Jatigede dam, both officials are at loggerheads on the source of funding for this project.

Mutholib said that the World Bank had prepared the funds to finance the dam, providing that the central government acquired the land.

"The first estimate was Rp 3 trillion, but that was before the monetary crisis. With the rupiah's depreciation, the budget could amount to Rp 10 trillion. The central government must also provide another Rp 100 billion to acquire the last 1,000 hectares of land from local residents," he said.

The dam will cover an area of 5,000 hectares and retain nearly 1 billion cubic meters of water, said Mutholib.

Roestam said the government was looking for funds to finance the problems of land compensation resulting from the project.

"There are no problems from the technical side of it, but we must cope with many nontechnical problems. For example, there are many residents who relocated, but have returned home despite receiving payment for their land. There are also problems concerning the archaeological sites in the area designated to be flooded," he said.

Roestam also said that international institutions, including the World Bank, had imposed stricter requirements for financing projects.

Roestam said, however, that there were two options for the dam.

The first design, costing US$361 million, is a 260-meter high dam covering 4,325 hectares and retaining 980 million cubic meters of water.

The second design is 225 meters high and covers 3,550 hectares, while retaining 792 million cubic meters of water. It costs $239.4 million.

Mutholib and Roestam said many locals were opposed to the project, but the problem could be solved peacefully if their land that was appropriated for the project was paid in accordance with prices on the local market.