T

he West Java provincial administration is still waiting for a presidential regulation on the completion of the Jatigede Dam project, which is part of the irrigation infrastructure plan initiated by former president Sukarno. The dam is scheduled to be filled in November this year.

Coordinating Economic Minister Chairul Tanjung said last week that the filling of the dam would be carried out only after all the remaining issues had been resolved. One of the problems, he said, was the finalization of compensation payments to residents displaced by the project.

Chairul said the issue had been brought up in a Cabinet meeting last week, but that the government had yet to issue a presidential regulation, nor a legal umbrella to settle the matter.

West Java Regional Development Planning Board head Deny Juanda Puradimaja said his office was still waiting for the issuance of a legal umbrella.

'€œThere is not yet any development. Please confirm it with the coordinating economic minister,'€ said Deny in a text message to The Jakarta Post on Monday.

Public Works Minister Djoko Kirmanto said that construction was nearly completed and the dam was only waiting to initiate the dam-filling process.

'€œThere are still problems with the areas which will be filled, as they are still occupied by residents,'€ he said. As many as 11,000 residents remains in the dam area.

Besides compensating residents displaced by the project, government funds will also be used to replace 810,000 trees felled within areas managed by the Forestry Ministry. In addition, the government must provide land to replace the 1,391 hectares (ha) absorbed by the dam.

During a meeting led by Chairul in Bandung, West Java, on Sept. 10, West Java Governor Ahmad Heryawan said all participants, including the National Development Planning Board (Bappenas) head, the agriculture minister and the industry minister, had agreed that land compensation would be covered by the state budget (APBN).

'€œAs much as Rp 1.15 trillion (US$100 million) from the state budget will be used to manage the social impacts, including the trees [that will be lost] and saving cultural sites,'€ said Ahmad.

Funding amounts were proposed by his administration and a team from the Finance Ministry had verified the final calculation.

Ahmad expressed the hope that funds would be disbursed via adjustments to this year'€™s state budget or from the 2015 state budget.

He was upbeat his office would be able to effectively handle the matter with the issuance of a presidential regulation on the compensation. He said the legal certainty was necessary as the land-acquisition process for the dam had been ongoing since 1975. After receiving compensation, however, a number of recipients have returned and settled in the dam area.

The Jatigede Dam is set to become the second-largest man-made dam in the country after Jatiluhur Dam in Purwakarta, West Java.

The dam is designed to irrigate 90,000 ha of farmland, as well as provide water for the north coast of Java at a pressure of 3.500 liters per second. It will also function as protect an area of 14,000 ha from floods. Water retained in the dam will also be used power a hydro power plant with a capacity of 110 megawatts.

As much as 90 percent of the construction costs for the dam project, or Rp 4 trillion, have been sourced via the Chinese Export-Import Bank, while the remaining 10 percent has come from the state budget as part of the Master Plan for the Acceleration and Expansion of Indonesian Economic Development (MP3EI).