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)