Thousands Of Villages In Papua Without Electricity

Jayapura, Papua (Antara Bali) - The Papua regional Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) service  said 4,114 villages in the province are still without electricity.

Head of the provincial ESDM office Bangun Manurung  said Papua has 5,419 villages and only 1,305 of them have electricity or less than 25 percent.

Bangun expressed doubt the government's electrification program  could  fully cover the villages in Papua in tens of years to come.

He said Papua needs special budget policy such as allocated for  other infrastructure sectors --  roads, bridges, communications  and airports.

"Electrification is equally important as developing  other infrastructure projects, but why electrification budget is not included in the budget for Papua,?" he queried.

He said the government should set aside budget for electricity  as it has provided for health and education.

He acknowledged development of electricity sector in Papua is not as easy as in Java  with the difficult terrain  and widely spread thinly populated villages.

Earlier, a lawmaker urged the government to be more serious in its efforts to cope with shortage of power supply in the country especially in the regions.

Mukhtar Tompo of the Commission VII of the House of Representatives (DPR) reminded the government of its pledge to build power plants with a total capacity of 35,000 watts until 2019.

Mukhtar said  the program of "Indonesia bright" aimed at providing electricity for thousands of villages , has not been effectively  implemented.

"Implementation of the program is still far from expectation in isolated areas in the regions," he said.

The ESDM Ministry has launched the program of "Indonesia Terang," ("Bright Indonesia) aimed at increasing the electrification rate in the eastern part of the archipelago over the next few years.

With the program, Indonesia aims to boost its electrification rate to 97 percent of the country's total population by 2019, up from 85 percent last year.

The program is part of the plan to build new power-generating plants with a total capacity of 35,000 MW.

The program is expected to light up under-developed villages in Indonesia's eastern provinces, such as Papua, West Papua, Maluku, North Maluku, East Nusa Tenggara and West Nusa Tenggara, where many people still live without  electricity.

"We will prioritize those six provinces as 67 percent of  villages there are still without electricity," former ESDM Minister Sudirman Said told reporters in Jakarta earlier.

Most power plants to be built in eastern  Indonesia would use  renewable sources of energy, which are available locally, Sudirman said.

Utilization of local sources of renewable energy would be much cheaper in cost in eastern Indonesia which consists mainly of islands.

The "Bright Indonesia" program will involve a number of state institutions such as the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas), the Ministry of Finance,  and the Ministry for Villages, Underdeveloped Regions and Transmigration.

Support is expected from district administrations by providing  lands and the necessary data, such as the number of villages without electricity.

Implementation of the program is estimated to cost Rp40 trillion  with the bulk expected from the state budget, investors and donor countries. (WDY)