The Government Pursues Electrification of 433 Villages in Papua

The Government Pursues Electrification of 433 Villages in Papua

Indonesian President Joko Widodo encouraged the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) to clearly identify villages that have not yet been electrified so that they can be immediately electrified. The President conveyed the need for acceleration so that all Indonesians could enjoy electricity, especially 433 villagers in Eastern Indonesia who were still without electricity.

The government through the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources has committed to immediately complete the Electrification Ratio to reach 100 percent. All people need to be guaranteed access to energy and their tariffs must be affordable.

ESDM Minister Arifin Tasrif admitted that there were 433 villages that did not yet enjoy electricity. The entire village is spread over in four provinces, namely 325 Papua, 102 Papua, West Nusa Tenggara (NTT) there are 5 villages, and Maluku 1 village.

From the year-end report of ESDM performance in 2019, electrification ratios per December 2019 in the four provinces were NTT 85 percent, Maluku 92 percent, Papua 94 percent and West Papua 99 percent. Arifin detailed rural electricity supply so far.

"The electricity supplied so far has come from PLN for 74,430 villages, which has not been initiated by PLN as many as 5,515 villages and this has been supplied by non-governmental organizations and local community assistance," Arifin said.

In order to carry out the program, the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources together with the National Electric Company (PLN) made a breakthrough or innovation that is non-conventional. This consideration was taken considering the location of the Eastern region that does not yet have complete infrastructure so that it requires large funds and a longer time.

"We know that the terrain in Papua is very heavy. Most of the villages are in the mountains thousands of meters. There are no roads, no transportation. For that, we use the spatial optimization and pattern recognition approach," said PLN President Director Zulkifli Zaini in a statement official.