Transmigration site fails

Transmigration site fails

RANTAU, South Kalimantan: Hundreds of families in Tapin regency,
South Kalimantan, have left the transmigration site they were
allotted and headed back home after trying for years to cultivate
the infertile land of Rawa Muning.

Rawa Muning is a marshland in South Kalimantan that was turned
into a transmigration site in 1994. Some 500 families from West
and Central Java, West Nusa Tenggara and Bali moved to Rawa
Muning under a government-backed transmigration program. Now,
only a few dozens remain.

Villagers said that the settlers had complained about the poor
irrigation system that made Rawa Muning unsuitable for farming.

Fifty-year-old Dabil from Pandahan village said the land
around Rawa Muning had once been quite fertile, until the land
was made into a transmigration site. He blamed the irrigation
system for causing the land's fertility to deteriorate.

Over the years, families that had transmigrated decided to
return home, selling their houses for Rp 200,000 (US$23) to Rp
300,000 to locals.

The transmigration program aims to distribute Indonesia's
population more evenly throughout the archipelago, relocating
families from overcrowded islands like Java to regions where the
population is low. -- Antara