Villages to be submerged for reservoir

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)