With the project targeting the poor in rural and urban areas across the country, the subsidized fuel price hike will hopefully have no significant impact on the poor, Public Works Minister Djoko Kirmanto said.
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Public Works Ministry is preparing at least Rp6 trillion in funds to build various basic infrastructure facilities in return for the imminent fuel price hike.

With the project targeting the poor in rural and urban areas across the country, the subsidized fuel price hike will hopefully have no significant impact on the poor, Public Works Minister Djoko Kirmanto said here on Wednesday.

He said 70 percent of the project which puts emphasis on drinking water supplies to the poor particularly in drought-prone areas, fishermen`s villages and fish ports will be carried out outside Java and 30 percent in Java.

The drinking water supply project will cover the supply of raw water at a cost of Rp2 trillion, the construction of small dams to supply drinking water to 93 drought-prone districts and cities at a cost of Rp899.5 billion, the protection of coastal areas in fishermen`s settlements at a cost of Rp299.5 billion and the repair of small irrigation system in 4,000 villages at a cost of Rp801 billion, he said.

The second priority of the project is settlement infrastructure which will cost Rp2 trillion. The project will be carried out through a public empowerment scheme consisting of direct assistance to 5,500 new villages and 1,800 slum villages worth Rp1.8 trillion and viability gap fund worth Rp175 billion, he said.

He said the third program is also related to the expansion of drinking water supplies to 318 fishemen`s villages at a cost of Rp2 trillion, including those to fish ports at a cost of Rp318 billion, 260 villages and 35 sub-district capitals prone to drought a cost of Rp742 billion and low-income people in 341 urban areas at a cost of Rp940 billion.

"The programs are actually not new. They just follow the previous government`s idea," he said.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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