Minister of Energy and Mineral Resource Sudirman Said said here on Friday that the six provinces where electrification ratio is too low currently are Maluku, North Maluku, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), Papua and West Papua.
"We have allocated Rp441 billion to produce 9.4 megawatt of electricity in those six provinces," the minister said.
Within the next five years, the government wants to bring 12,659 remote villages under electrification. Of these, 2,519 villages are still outside the pale of the electric grid.
"You can imagine that such off-the-grid villages would have remained underdeveloped, with little access to any sources of information and a low standard of life," he said.
The electricity infrastructure in these regions will have to be built through different approaches, such as decentralization and island-based infrastructure as well as by harnessing the renewable energy potential there.
The government estimated that at least Rp100 trillion of investment is needed to develop infrastructure under this program, 80 percent of which will be funded by the corporation while the rest will come from the State Budget.
Meanwhile, Deputy Governor of West Papua, Irine Maribuy, expected that access to electricity will greatly impact the life of the people of Papua.
"Electricity is the backbone of development," Irine said.(*)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
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