Villages to be submerged for reservoir

BANJARNEGARA, Central Java (JP): Nine villages covering 950 hectares in three districts of Banjarnegara regency will be submerged next year to provide a reservoir for a hydro-electric power plant.

Regent Nurachmad told The Jakarta Post yesterday that the Maung project started in 1981 but stopped two years later because of budget cutbacks as the government introduced belt-tightening measures.

The project will recommence next year and should be completed by 2000, Nurachmad said.

He did not say whether the villagers have agreed to give up their land for the project, but most residents in the nine villages said they are ready to be relocated as long as they are given land of the same size.

"We prefer relocation to transmigration," resident Suparmo said.

Transmigration is the government's program of resettling people from crowded Java to other islands in the Indonesian archipelago.

The hydro-electric power plant will have a capacity to generate 1,000 megawatt of electricity, more than five times the capacity of the nearby Mrica hydro-electric plant.

The new project, which will rely on tributaries of the Merawu River, will supply electricity to the Java grid. It will also be able to supply electricity to Bali and other islands to the east.

With the Maung project, the Banjarnegara regency will be home to three hydro-electric power plants.

The third plant is currently under construction in Tulis, and should be completed next year.

The Tulis plant, being built at a cost of Rp 60 billion, will have a capacity of 12.4 megawatts, according to project chief Alam Hakim. (wah/05)