Boil Subsidy Fertilizer In Bali Is Now Easy, Just Use An ID Card

Director of Business Transformation of PT Pupuk Indonesia (Persero), Panji Winanteya Ruky. (Photo: Mery Handayani/VOI)

JAKARTA - Farmers in five provinces in Indonesia have now redeemed subsidized fertilizers only by bringing their ID cards to kiosks. One in five provinces is Denpasar, Bali.

The farmer data was recorded in the i-Pubers application.

Director of Business Transformation of PT Pupuk Indonesia (Persero), Panji Winanteya Ruky, said that the government, in this case, the Ministry of SOEs through Pupuk Indonesia, is working with the Ministry of Agriculture to develop the digitization of fertilizer kiosks.

Furthermore, Panji said the digitization of the fertilizer kion aims to facilitate transaction recording, increase transparency, prevent irregularities and simplify the process of redeeming subsidized fertilizers.

With this digitization, farmers just need to come to the official fertilizer kiosk and show their ID card. The data regarding allocations, types of commodities and others, are all recorded in the system. It's easy to save, right on target," said Panji while visiting the Krama Subak Lumbung Sari Cooperative Kiosk, Tremese Village, Gianyar District, Bali Province, Monday, July 3.

"Farmers are no longer complicated, kiosk owners are facilitated, and benefits for the Government also minimize the risk of irregularities or fertilizers being accepted by people who are not entitled," continued Panji.

Furthermore, Panji said that this system was already running in five provinces, namely Bali, Aceh, Bangka Belitung, Riau, and South Kalimantan.

The digitization of this kiosk is a follow-up to President Joko Widodo's direction to the Ministry of SOEs and the Ministry of Agriculture some time ago. Where one of the directives is to improve the governance of subsidized fertilizers through digitalization.

"This is part of Pupuk Indonesia's efforts to improve services to the community, especially by making fertilizer distribution easier and on target," he said.

A system called iPubers is a digital application based on NIK, this system is the result of the collaboration between PT Pupuk Indonesia and the Ministry of Agriculture. Currently, a total of 697 kiosks have implemented this system.

Especially for Bali, said Panji, the digitization of the redeeming of subsidized fertilizers itself has been running effectively since 2022. The same system was also implemented in Aceh Besar District in early 2023.

After the two provinces, the Ministry of SOEs through Pupuk Indonesia continues to expand the process of digitally redeeming subsidized fertilizers. Last week, Tuesday, June 27, the Ministry of Agriculture officially implemented the digitization of kiosks in three provinces at once, namely the Provinces of Bangka Belitung, Riau, and South Kalimantan.

"So that currently farmers in five provinces have been able to redeem subsidized fertilizers very easily, namely just going to kiosks directly and showing ID cards," added Panji.

Meanwhile, the Pupuk Indonesia Marketing Operation SEVP, Gatoet Gembiro Noegroho explained that after the subsidized recipient farmers show their ID cards, the kiosk owners will then scan the NIK on their ID cards to access the farmer's subsidized fertilizer allocation data.

Furthermore, said Gatoet, the kiosk will include the number of redeeming transactions and the farmer signs proof of transactions on the device screen used.

Farmers were also photographed with their fertilizers as evidence of the redeeming of subsidized fertilizers.

"This data is stored digitally, so farmers and kiosks no longer need to fill out forms in paper form," he said.

Pupuk Indonesia hopes to get feedback from kiosk owners and farmers in the five provinces. This will be part of the evaluation process to improve the quality of subsidized fertilizer replacement services.

"Because in the future the digitization of kiosks will be expanded in the official Pupuk Indonesia kiosk network throughout Indonesia," he said.