Rice Cooker Distribution Program Free Budget Absorbs IDR 173 Billion

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) through the Directorate General of Electricity (Ditjen Gatrik) noted that the realization of the budget for the free rice cooker distribution program (AML) reached Rp176 billion. The number of retailers distributed reached 342,621 units of the 500,000 units targeted or reached 68.5 percent.

Meanwhile, the Director General of Electricity at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Jisman P Hutajulu, said that the ceiling for the provision of AML was budgeted at IDR 322 billion.

"The realization of AML's total program budget of Rp. 176 billion from the initial ceiling of around Rp. 322 billion. The remaining Rp. 146 billion is the remaining more budget financing or is called SILPA," said Jisman in a Hearing Meeting (RDP) with Commission VII DPR RI, Monday 25 March.

In his presentation, Jisman also revealed that the AML was distributed evenly to 36 provinces, 325 regencies/cities with an allocation in Java and Bali reaching 56 percent. According to him, this is in line with the excess electricity supply that occurred in the Jabali Region.

The procurement of rice cookers is carried out through e-catalog and followed by 5 brands that meet the requirements and level of domestic components (TKDN), namely Cosmos, Miyako, Maspion, Sanken, and Sekai.

"Procurement of AML 2023 through e-catalog with a limited time that is impossible through the auction," added Jisman.

Jisman also said that the program's budget component also includes distribution costs through PT Pos Indonesia (Persero) with an average cost of IDR 133,178 per unit.

Jisman said that this program was actually proposed and approved with Commission VII of the DPR RI in September 2022 and followed by a trilateral meeting between the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, the Ministry of Finance, and the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) in October 2022.

Unfortunately, this program was not approved on the grounds that it had not been included in the National Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMN) and had not received approval from the Budget Agency (Banggar) of the DPR RI.

After obtaining Banggar's approval, continued Jisman, a trilateral meeting was then held in September 2023 and it was agreed to distribute 500,000 rice cooker units with a total budget of IDR 322 billion.

The work on the AML program began on October 6, 2023, with the process of proposing potential beneficiaries, followed by verification and field surveys by PT PLN (Persero).

Initially, Jisman said the recipient's proposal reached 811,109 households, but through an examination as many as 220,056 duplicate data based on a NIK or ID card, while 588,053 did not experience data duplication.

Jisman also said, based on a field survey conducted by PLN, from the unduplicated data, only 75.4 percent or as many as 443,560 households were declared to meet the criteria.

Furthermore, from the data that met the criteria, another validation was carried out by the village head with the results of 342,621 households valid and eligible to receive rice cooker assistance.