The Ministry Of Energy And Mineral Resources Uses The 2024 Budget To Increase Free Electricity Installation For The Poor

Illustration (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) together with Commission VII DPR RI approved a 2024 budget ceiling of IDR 6.7 trillion.

The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources has also optimized the budget set for infrastructure development to be continued.

"Given that there is no additional budget for infrastructure, the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources has optimized goods spending on internal services so that efficiency of IDR 89.25 billion has been obtained to be diverted to additional Electricity New Installation Assistance (BPBL) of 34,704 households (RT) from 80,000 RT to 114,704 RT," Arifin said in a Working Meeting with Commission VII quoted Thursday, September 14.

Arifin explained that the free electricity connection program through the BPBL program to the public is the Government's effort to provide access to electricity for the poor at affordable rates because the beneficiaries of this BPBL program will then become customers of PT PLN (Persero) class 450 VA subsidies.

In addition to increasing the electrification ratio, through this program, it is hoped that it can improve people's standard of living and independence.

"This program shows that the government is present in the midst of people in difficult and isolated areas who need lighting," said the Director General of Electricity, Jisman Hutajulu.

Jisman said, there are still underprivileged people who have passed the PT PLN (Persero) electricity network in front of the house, but have not been able to get direct access to electricity as PLN customers.

"This is due to the inability to pay for the cost of new installs of electricity, so we have to distribute or share electricity connections with neighbors," continued Jisman.

For information, in 2022, the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources targets as many as 80,000 households to get free electricity connections through the BPBL program.

Realization at the end of 2022 managed to turn on beyond the target of 80,183 households or 100.2 percent.

This year, the BPBL Program was resumed by targeting 125,000 RTs throughout Indonesia.