Jakarta has 1.4m poor people: BKKBN

JAKARTA (JP): The number of poor people in the capital is estimated to have risen to 1.4 million, or 14.7 percent of the city's 9.5 million population, data from the Jakarta office of the National Family Planning Board (BKKBN) has shown.

The 1.4 million poor people come from 191,776 families. Each family is assumed to consist of seven family members, Antara reported.

Rusmandesiar, the head of the population section of the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS), said over the weekend that the figures on poverty released by BKKBN and BPS were frequently about the same. If there is a difference it is usually not more than 10 percent, he said.

"Operationally, BKKBN's data is better because it is based on field observations," he said.

He explained that BPS produced their poverty estimates using secondary data on spending, gross domestic product and the distribution of income, but did not undertake field observations.

Their estimates suggest that in 1993, the number of people living below the poverty line in Jakarta was 497,000, or 5.6 percent of the city's total population of 8.79 million. BPS set the poverty line at the per capita income of Rp 39,530 per month.

The number of poor in the city dropped to 231,000 in 1996 -- 2.5 percent of the total population of 9.3 million. The poverty line that year was set at the monthly per capita income of Rp 50,250.

Rusmandesiar said that the BPS estimate of the number of poor people in Jakarta -- which is calculated once every three years -- would jump sharply from 1996 when the figures are revised next year.

This rise, he explained, would be caused mainly by the country's deteriorating economy. Inflation was running at above 40 percent in the first half of this year and forecasts suggest the economy will contract by 15 percent this year. The economic difficulties have been compounded by disruptions caused by the May riots.

The free fall of the rupiah against the U.S. dollar, which has devastated per capita incomes, has also caused the poverty line to move upwards, he said.

"In 1996, before the crisis, the average per capita income in Jakarta was Rp 7 million per annum," he added. (hhr)