T

he Depok administration has claimed that the policy of reducing rice consumption has successfully cut 41 servings of rice from a civil servant’s diet in a whole year.

Mayor Nur Mahmudi Ismail evaluated on Tuesday the implementation of the One Day No Rice campaign, which he said had reduced rice consumption by 28 kilocalories per person since going into effect in February 2012.

An average serving of white rice, the main staple of the majority of Indonesians, contains 680 calories.

“The policy has instead increased the consumption of corn to 20 kilocaries per capita per day while cassava and other edible tubers are now 7 kilocalories per capita,” he said.

The policy has encouraged civil servants within the administration to change their main staple from rice to other carbohydrate sources on Tuesdays. It has also been applied in the canteens in municipality offices which sell corn, sago or sorghum as alternatives to rice on that particular day. The policy was launched by the former forestry minister because he was concerned that the high demand for rice from urban people in Indonesia could not be met by domestic supply.

Nur Mahmudi has also brought the campaign on the road to other municipalities and regencies, even as far as the Sangihe-Talaud islands in North Sulawesi.

However, although the campaign has been a success at home with restaurants and cafes outside the municipality offices starting to put alternative staples on the menu, the canteens were deserted on Tuesday as many civil servants went to the shopping mall right next to the City Hall for lunch.

“It’s hard to change the habit of eating rice every day. I can take potatoes, but I can not digest corn, sorghum or sago,” said a female civil servant who declined to be named while talking about the issue.

She said that they got lunch outside or brought it in from home every Tuesday.

The One Day No Car policy every Tuesday has also become unpopular because staff and visitors at City Hall have to park their cars along Jl. Margonda Raya instead of in the parking lot, thus causing traffic congestion.

But the policy, which prohibits civil servants and officials from driving to work, does not apply to Nur Mahmudi’s wife Nur Azizah Tamhid who got through the gate and parked her Toyota Innova in the parking lot in the basement of City Hall.

She said that she had dispensation to drive to City Hall every Tuesday because she needed to be mobile for her social activities as the mayor’s wife. “[My mobility] is for the people, while [civil servants’] is for personal purposes, that’s the difference. Moreover, my husband is an official but I’m not,” she told reporters.