"Hopefully, this presidential instruction can be issued, and we will implement the presidential instruction in 2024," Director General of Human Settlements Diana Kusumastuti stated during an online press conference in Jakarta on Tuesday.
Kusumastuti remarked that the Presidential Instruction on Drinking Water and Sanitation was aimed at accelerating the achievement of piped drinking water services through home connections to the community.
"If we look at the drinking water resource infrastructure built by the central government here, there is still a lot that has not been utilized (idle), so we have to channel these water resources to the community, so they can enjoy piped water," she stated.
The presidential instruction is not only about drinking water but also related to sanitation, so data will be collected in each area that does not yet have house connections. Thus, the construction of house connections for the community is financed by the presidential instruction.
According to Kusumastuti, achieving access to adequate drinking water and pipes is still a common challenge in Indonesia. Access to safe drinking water has currently only reached 91.08 percent.
"Moreover, if we talk about access to adequate drinking water, it has only increased by one percent per year, and the growth rate of piped access has not reached one percent in the last five years (2017-2022)," she remarked.
The Presidential Instruction on Drinking Water and Sanitation is one of the focuses of the PUPR Ministry's program in 2024 to carry out infrastructure development, which is a directive from the president of the Republic of Indonesia and presidential instructions, namely Presidential Instruction on Regional Roads and Presidential Instruction on Drinking Water and Sanitation.
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The Ministry of National Development Planning (Bappenas) has initiated a Presidential Instruction regarding clean water and sanitation after being approved by President of the Republic of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, at a limited meeting that discussed the development of a drinking water supply system (SPAM).
This presidential instruction will come into effect in 2025. For this Presidential Instruction on drinking water and sanitation, the total requirement is Rp16.6 trillion (around US$1 billion), which is earmarked not for building water treatment installation (IPA) infrastructure but for installing connections to people's homes in order to achieve the target of 10 million house connections.
The government currently has infrastructure for water treatment plants, both national strategic projects (PSN) and regional ones.
The Ministry of National Development Planning had earlier targeted regions with high stunting rates for the government's intervention in installing clean water plumbing.
"The president's direction is that the targeted houses to receive this are those in regions, including those with high stunting rates, especially those that need intervention in better clean water provision," Bappenas Minister Suharso Monoarfa stated.
He noted that the targets will be regulated by the presidential instruction in accordance with the agreement reached during an internal meeting held at the Merdeka Palace on Monday.
Monoarfa reported that the piped clean water connections reached 3.8 million households as of 2023, up from the target of 10 million households set in the 2019-2024 National Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMN).
To this end, he noted that the government has yet to provide 6.2 million piped water connections by 2024.
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Translator: Aji C, Azis Kurmala
Editor: Yuni Arisandy Sinaga
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