Weather agency plans to buy more sophisticated equipment
JAKARTA (JP): The government yesterday promised to spend $90 million in new equipment to bolster the capability of the Meteorological and Geophysics Agency (BMG), which forecasts weather and monitors natural disasters such as earthquakes.
"It's a matter of to be or not to be," Minister of Transportation Haryanto Dhanutirto said, explaining the government's plan to purchase more sophisticated equipment.
"Lack of instruments has always been used as an excuse for BMG's inability to provide more accurate information to members of the public," Haryanto said. "We need to have new instruments and the expertise to use them."
The minister was speaking after opening a national meeting of the agencies' staff at Taman Mini Indonesia Indah yesterday. The meeting, which will end tomorrow, is being attended by 200 members of the agency.
BMG, which comes under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Transportation, depends entirely on the central government for its operational budget and does not have any other sources of revenue.
Compared to the budget of the agency last year which only reached $7.1 million, this year's budget is truly revolutionary, Haryanto admitted. But it also brings additional tasks, he said.
The main task of this agency is to provide data on weather forecasting and climate as well as symptoms or signs of any imminent natural disaster.
Haryanto urged the agency to start cooperation with mass media, particularly with television networks.
"So far as I see, we have only cooperated with TVRI (government-run television) and have not done similar things with private TV networks," he said, adding that cooperation with private parties may bring additional income for the agency.
The weather forecasting package program, Haryanto said, has not yet been well designed. "The more accurate and interesting program will have the selling point," he said.
"In the future, I also want Indonesia included in CNN's daily weather forecast," he said referring to the American 24-hour news network which has a sizable audience among affluent Indonesians.
Extension
Haryanto said BMG's services can be extended for the use of farming and forestry.
BMG chief Karjoto admitted that the agency's services are now in great demand.
"More and more people are using our services, from air, sea and land transportation companies, to plantation and offshore oil exploration activities," Karjoto said.
The agency currently runs 34 meteorological stations, 28 manually operated geophysical stations, 27 automatic seismic censors and five quake monitoring stations.
With 3,000 employees, BMG monitors on average about 60 earthquakes each month in Indonesia, he said.
BMG will also cooperate with counterparts in Singapore, Australia, France and the Netherlands to improve its ability to identify tectonic movements in the near future. The program also includes the creation of an early warning system and contingency plans for natural disaster, Karjoto said. (prs)