President Jokowi Inaugurates The Tapin Dam In South Kalimantan, Spending IDR 986 Billion Budget

President Joko Widodo (Photo: Capture YouTube Screenshot of Presidential Secretariat)

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) inaugurated the Tapin Dam in South Kalimantan. The dam, which is located in Tapin Regency, was built since 2015 and spent a budget of IDR 986 billion.

"This dam was built five years ago in 2015 and has been completed, spending a budget of IDR 986 billion, almost IDR 1 trillion", said Jokowi during the inauguration ceremony broadcast on the Presidential Secretariat YouTube channel, Thursday, February 18.

The dam which has a capacity of 56.7 million cubic meters of water, he continued, will play an important role in controlling flood. In addition, this dam can also strengthen food security because it can provide irrigation or irrigation for 5.472 hectares of land.

"It also provides raw water of 0.50 cubic meters per second and also generates 3.3 megawatts of electricity, which is huge", he said.

The former governor of DKI Jakarta has also received a report from the Governor of South Kalimantan, since the dam was completed, the floods in Tapin Regency have drastically reduced.

"Only very small areas are affected by the flood because Tapin has this dam", he said.

"This is the function of the dam. Beside irrigating rice fields, generating electricity, raw water, it is also in the context of controlling the flood", Jokowi added.

Furthermore, he also mentioned that in South Kalimantan there are about 10 districts/cities that need comprehensive flood management from upstream to downstream. So, he reminded the Governor of South Kalimantan to carry out land rehabilitation.

"Reforestation, replanting in lands, especially those related to existing watersheds, need to be carried out on a large scale if we don't want to be flooded in the future", he concluded.