"If the presidential instruction is approved by the President, that will be one way out," he said on the sidelines of the second consultation meeting on the 2024 World Water Forum (WWF) in Jimbaran, Bali, on Thursday.
According to him, the presidential instruction on clean water is expected to meet the need for around 10 million clean water household pipe connections in the country.
Currently, the clean water pipe network has only reached 20 percent of Indonesia's total population, he highlighted.
"We want to accelerate the provision of clean water through the clean water presidential instruction," the minister said.
He informed that the presidential instruction would be drafted during a limited meeting in the near future.
In June 2020, the World Bank released the Indonesian Public Expenditure Study, which stated that the central government had made progress in ensuring water supply and sanitation over a period of two decades.
As of 2018, 73 percent of households in the country had access to improved drinking water, an increase compared to 1994, when the figure was only 38 percent, as per the World Bank study.
However, Indonesia still lagged behind countries with comparable economies in the region in providing basic needs, such as China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand.
The study also recorded that nationally, 43 and 59 percent of people from upper-class and rich economic backgrounds consumed bottled water, respectively.
Access to piped water for both the upper class and the rich stood at 12 percent, according to the study.
Meanwhile, 9–10 percent of poor to middle economic groups use piped water and 73 percent of poor people nationally used water pumps, protected or not.
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Translator: Dewa Ketut S W, Resinta Sulistiyandari
Editor: Azis Kurmala
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