Jakarta (ANTARA) - The Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing's Directorate General of Water Resources recorded that the ministry's labor-intensive programmes in the water resources sector had absorbed 130 thousand workers as of September 23, 2022.

"The number of workforce absorbed by labor-intensive programmes in the water resources sector reaches 130 thousand," the ministry's Director General of Water Resources, Jarot Widyoko, stated in a press conference here.

He said that budget realization of labor-intensive programmes in the water resources sector had reached 90.69 percent of the target, while the physical development realization reached 85.35 percent.

Meanwhile, the coverage of projects organized under the labor-intensive programmes had reached 9,300 points out of the targeted 10 thousand points this year, the director general added.

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Earlier, Minister of Public Works and Public Housing Minister Basuki Hadimuljono deemed that labor-intensive infrastructure programmes could help low-income residents during economic uncertainties due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Apart from accelerating economic development and increasing the residents' purchasing power, he said that labor-intensive programmes could help distribute government funds to villages or remote areas.

The cash- and labor-intensive programmes, organized by the ministry through the irrigation system improvement acceleration policy (P3-TGAI), are being implemented throughout Indonesia this year.

By 2022, the P3-TGAI programme is targeted to reach 10 thousand points, with a total budget of Rp2.25 trillion (US$148 million).

The ministry's labour-intensive programmes organized during the 2020-2021 period had absorbed a total of 2.10 million workers, with a total budget of Rp34.35 trillion (US$2.26 billion), and projects in the water resources sector absorbed 612,673 workers, with a total budget of Rp9.70 trillion (US$642 million).

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Translator: Aji Cakti, Nabil Ihsan
Editor: Suharto
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