Ministry of Finance of Republic of Indonesia : Retention Basin to be Priority of Village Development

Jakarta, 12/01/2017 MoF - Village fund increased to IDR60 trillion this year. Based on data of Ministry of Village, Development of Disadvantaged Regions, and Transmigration (PDTT), water infrastructure becomes the priority for village development particularly retention basin to support agriculture. Thus, the ministry will cooperate with Ministry of Agriculture.

'As requested by the Minister of Agriculture, we built 628 retention basins for the last three months. Furthermore, we also asked the agriculture-based villages to allocate their fund for retention basin development,' said the minister of Village and PDTT Eko Sandjojo as quoted from Ministry of Village and PDTT site on Thursday (12/01).

Out of 74,754 villages in Indonesia, 82.77 percent of them relied on agricultural sector. However, some of them only managed to harvest 1.4 times a year due to water shortage. 'The farmers will be able to harvest 3 times a year once they have retention basin which means the productivity will increase,' he said. In the future, the village is expected to produce crops on a large scale, that is integrated and equipped with post-harvest facilities. (as/rsa)