"People in Jakarta had received social assistance in many forms. We are still looking for the root of extreme poverty," he noted at the Jakarta City Hall, Monday.
The regional government has provided several social assistance programs for underprivileged people in the form of the Jakarta Smart Card (KJP), Senior Citizen Cards, cards for people with disabilities, Jakarta Worker Cards, school operational assistance, and subsidized food.
Head of the General Section of Statistics Indonesia (BPS) in Jakarta branches Suryana explained that extreme poverty rate in Jakarta was equivalent to 0.89 percent of the entire population in the city, or reached 10.7 million people.
"Extreme poverty in Jakarta is growing, from 0.6 percent to 0.89 percent, or an increase of 0.29 percent," he added.
He explained that extreme poverty was evenly distributed throughout the city, though most of it was spread in North Jakarta.
He remarked that the indicator of extreme poverty is the level of the people's ability to shop or their purchasing power, which only reached under Rp11,633 per person per day, or around Rp350 thousand per month.
The Jakarta Provincial Government has conducted a search for as many as 95,668 extreme poor residents in the region in March 2022. This figure has increased by 0.29 percent as compared to March 2021 during which around 95,391 people were recorded.
The effort was made to facilitate governmental intervention to reduce poverty.
"We will focus to ensure that the recipients will be right on target," head of the Jakarta Regional Planning and Development Service Atika Nur Rahmania stated.
In order to ensure the correct recipients receive social assistance, the local government will match the name and address of the beneficiaries, she explained.
"We will identify using the name by address method. We still need to find these 95 thousand people," she stated.
The Jakarta Provincial Government collaborates with BKKBN and BPS Jakarta for identifying the extreme poverty data.
Related news: Social welfare improvement a priority in 2023: Minister Effendy
Related news: VP Amin highlights year-on-year decline in poverty rate
Related news: Regional heads know actions needed to end extreme poverty: President
Translator: Dewa Ketut S W, Resinta S
Editor: Azis Kurmala
Copyright © ANTARA 2023
