Jakartans prefer industrial transmigration

Jakartans prefer industrial transmigration

JAKARTA (JP): Governor Surjadi Soedirdja said that Jakartans
should be trained and sent to other provinces in Indonesia as
industrial transmigrants rather than asking them to join the
traditional transmigration programs.

"The fact is that most Jakartans are not familiar with
agriculture because they have never worked in that field before.
Therefore it's better to send them as industrial transmigrants,"
Soedirdja said yesterday when he saw off Jakartans departing for
resettlement areas in Aceh.

Surjadi said that Jakarta has signed a series of agreements
with a number of provinces, including Riau, Central Sulawesi,
South and Central Kalimantan. The agreement states that Jakarta
will regularly send industrial transmigrants to the areas.

"We will train the would-be transmigrants before sending them
to resettlement sites," Surjadi said, adding that Jakartans are
working in Riau in the house appliances industry and in Central
Sulawesi they are working in food the industry.

Surjadi attributed the small number of Jakartans joining the
government sponsored transmigration programs to the lack of
experience in agriculture.

Fifty families, or 203 people, from Jakarta left for a
transmigration site in Aceh with 855 people from Central and East
Java.

They will be resettled in several areas in West Aceh, such as
Alue Glumpang, Krueng Tuan and Batas Puteh.

The city administration plans to send 1600 families to
transmigration sites outside Java in the 1994-1995 fiscal year.

"Thus far we have already sent a total of 616 families,"
Surjadi said.

The head of the Jakarta Transmigration Office,
Haryokusumowardhono, said that most Jakartans who join the
transmigration program are poor residents who live in slum areas.

Governor Soedirja said that transmigration is a way to reduce
the population in the capital city.

"Many people come to the city to find a better life but on the
contrary they only pose many problems to the city."

The governor hopes that the population growth will be
decreased from 2,41 percent to two percent because. "Otherwise
there will be 12 million people living in Jakarta by the year
2005." (yns)