As Many As 80 Percent Of Rice Fields In Indonesia Still Depends On Rainfall Even Though 61 Dams Have Built

Illustration (Photo: Doc Antara)

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing (PUPR) said that during the 10 years of President Joko Widodo (Jokowi)'s leadership, 61 new dams had been built, bringing the cumulative number to 300 dams.

However, this number is very far compared to existing dams in developed countries such as China and South Korea.

Spokesperson for the Ministry of PUPR Endra S. Atmawidjaja said, since 2014 until now, Indonesia has built 61 dams.

Of that number, 45 of them have been completed, the last one that was inaugurated was the Leuwikeris Dam in Tasikmalaya and Margatiga in Lampung.

"The total number of our dams is now around 300, yes. This is far from China, which has 90,000 large dams," Endra said in a Webinar Guarding 10 Years of Online Infrastructure Development, Monday, September 2.

In addition to dams, in the last 10 years, the government has also built 1.1 million hectares (ha) of new irrigation networks and 4.4 million hectares of existing rehabilitation.

"Well, we also have to know that our rice fields, which amount to around 7.3 million, are only 10 percent, yes. This means that the rest are still rice fields," said the Webinar Starting 10 Years of Online Infrastructure Development, Monday, September 2.

Thus, according to him, Indonesia still has a large homework (PR) to build irrigation networks.

The hope is that in the future the rice fields in Indonesia will be guaranteed their water supply throughout the year.

"We are only 10 percent with the addition of 60 dams, we managed to increase it to 19 percent. It means that 80 percent of our rice fields are still raining rice fields," he said.

Endra emphasized that the government's move in boosting infrastructure development in the last 10 years is an effort to meet the needs of the community as well as to catch up with Indonesia from developed countries.

"I think infrastructure is a necessity or requirement for a developed country. What we are doing is not to be arrogant, yes. Not for us to do a big ambition, but at the beginning of the 2014 work cabinet, what we really did to build infrastructure was to catch up," he added.