W. Java not prepared for drought: Councillor

Yuli Tri Suwarni, The Jakarta Post, Bandung

The annual drought that always hits West Java's rice belt apparently has yet to prompt the provincial agriculture agency into preparing appropriate measures, councillor Dardiri said on Thursday.

Dardiri, a National Awakening Party (PKB) councillor with Commission D overseeing agriculture, criticized the agency for always being late in allocating special funds to deal with the annual drought.

"Last year, the agency submitted a budget for procuring irrigation pumps for rice plants worth Rp 60 billion (US$7.32 million) as an additional budget for 2002, after the drought hit," he said.

"But we haven't checked if the pumps have helped overcome the drought. We only found out from newspaper reports that the rice plants on the north coast had suffered from the drought."

Head of the agency Dadi Mulyadi refuted critics on Friday, saying that only 345 of 240,000 hectares of rice fields in the province had been hit by the drought so far.

"Last year was worse, with around 40,000 hectares of rice plants withering," he said.

Dadi was optimistic that the drought would not affect the province's target of producing 9.3 million tons of rice.

He also suggested that farmers postpone planting rice until October.

"If farmers want to plant rice, they must wait until the rainy season in October. In the meantime, it's better for them to plant vegetables," he said.

Over 45,000 hectares of rice in Indramayu and Cirebon regencies have reportedly withered following the early arrival of the annual drought predicted to last until November.

The situation was made worse with the decrease in the water supply from three dams in Salam Darma, Subang regency, in Bendung Rentang, Majalengka regency, and in Jatiluhur, Purwakarta regency.

Head of operations and maintenance for the Water Resource Management Agency Iding Srihadi said that Jatiluhur dam's water supply had decreased by more than 300 million cubic meters.

He added that an indication that the water supply at Jatiluhur would decrease had already been detected last December, when the volume of water had fallen by 600 million cubic meters.

An effort last March to increase the water supply through artificial rain did not produce significant results, as it was only able to add 222 million cubic meters.

Iding blamed the poor result on the fact that the artificial rain mostly fell upstream of the Citarum river, the biggest river in West Java that runs through the dam.

The water level at Jatiluhur dam is currently 98 meters, while the ideal level is over 105 meters.

Aside from Indramayu and Cirebon regencies, rice plants in Majalengka, Subang and Sukabumi regencies have also withered.

The Water Resource Management Agency had requested the council's approval in asking the provincial administration to provide Rp 1.1. billion to induce artificial rain.

Even so, the artificial rain cannot be created now, as the process must be undertaken early on in the rainy season, which is predicted for October.

"If we create the artificial rain now, it's useless because there are only a few clouds," Iding said, adding that farmers were urged to ration out the water supply.

Iding said that the drought along the north coast could have been overcome had the Jatigede dam construction in Sumedang regency been completed.

Unfortunately, the Rp 7 billion dam has yet to be built, due to an unsettled matter in regards clearing the land for the project.