Resettlement plan to go ahead despite drought
Resettlement plan to go ahead despite drought
JAKARTA (JP): Drought will not stop the government resettling
20,000 more families at the experimental peat moss farmland
project in Central Kalimantan, officials said yesterday.
They said this year's drought was not affecting the
government's Rp 5 trillion (US$2.1 billion) program to convert
one million hectares of peat moss into food crop estates.
The government says 20,000 families will resettle voluntarily
at the site under its transmigration program. They will join
2,500 resettlers already there.
"There is no need to postpone the plan; we will go ahead as
scheduled," Minister of Agriculture Sjarifuddin Baharsjah said
after meeting President Soeharto at Merdeka Palace.
Sjarifuddin, Minister of Public Works Radinal Moochtar and
Minister of Transmigration Siswono Yudohusodo met the President
to report on the project. They are members of a team formed by
Soeharto to supervise the project.
"We have completed 693 kilometers of primary canals of the 704
planned kilometers and 864 kilometers of secondary canals of the
targeted 1,089 kilometers," Radinal said.
The project, launched in February last year, is to convert one
million hectares of peat land into 638,000 hectares of rice
fields. The remaining 362,000 hectares are earmarked for
horticulture, plantations, conservation areas, housing and
reservoirs.
The government has appointed PT Sumatra Timur Indonesia, a
subsidiary of the Sambu Group, to implement the project.
After inspecting the project site in April, President Soeharto
denied criticism that the project was haphazard. He said the
project aimed to guarantee food security and the country's self-
sufficiency in rice.
The President said the project would be financed partly with
reforestation funds, but did not elaborate.
Radinal said that, to overcome water shortages, the company
had built provisional dams and was pumping groundwater to supply
water to 2,500 hectares of land, 200 hectares of which would be
paddies and the rest planted with corn.
Minister of Transmigration Siswono Yudohusodo told a hearing
of House Commission IV on resettlements Monday that little could
be done to help the 2,500 farmers because irrigation systems had
not been completed.
To cope with the drought, each family received three plastic
tanks and a water purifier, Siswono said.
House members have criticized the government for relocating
people to the site before water distribution systems were even
close to completion.
The Central Java provincial government advised people
yesterday living in northern coastal areas of gastric disease
during the drought.
Central Java health office chief Sri Astuti Suparmanto said
there had been reports on gastric diseases, but all could be
handled properly.
"Many have been admitted to hospitals there has been no word
of fatalities," she was quoted by Antara as saying.
She identified the Brebes, Tegal, Pekalongan, Kendal,
Semarang, Demak, Pati, Lasem and Rembang regencies as potential
areas for gastric outbreaks.
Drought had been blamed for Jambi's drop in rice production
from 657,000 tons last year to 594,000 tons this year, Jambi
agriculture office chief Soepodo Budiman said yesterday.
He said he was worried that the situation would deteriorate if
rain did not fall by October.(06/01)