Special Committee For The New National Capital: Infrastructure To Food Must Be Prepared For East Kalimantan

PHOTO VIA BETWEEN

JAKARTA - Member of the Special Committee (Pansus) for the Draft Law on the National Capital City (RUU IKN) G. Budisatrio Djiwandono stated that the IKN development will help equalize infrastructure development in the East Kalimantan region.

"We agree that there is a need for even distribution of connectivity from every district/city from Berau to Paser which is the entry point for our neighbors from South Kalimantan and North Kalimantan," he said during a public consultation on the IKN Bill in Jakarta as reported by Antara, Tuesday, January 11.

Budi explained that it was the responsibility of the government to not only carry out development on a land area of 260 thousand hectares as a place for IKN to be established but also the surrounding buffer areas.

In addition, the government must pay attention to food security for East Kalimantan by bringing in rice, sugar, meat and others from outside East Kalimantan. This effort is made to ensure that all the people of East Kalimantan and the 571 million State Civil Apparatus (ASN) who will stay in IKN are not disturbed by the availability of food.

"We will prepare how many commodities we bring from South Sulawesi, East Java and Lampung. Don't let there be around 571 million civil servants who will stay but their food will be disturbed," he said.

According to him, this is an opportunity to transform the East Kalimantan economy which has been dependent on oil, gas and coal so that the government and stakeholders can start preparing food barns.

"We are jointly preparing new food barns, rice fields that have modern agriculture, modern cultivation and horticulture, modern livestock in East Kalimantan," he explained.