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he Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry announced on Friday that the government will start promoting its plan to limit subsidized fuel distribution to the public next week.

Before that, it said, the government would set up a team to lead the information campaign to ensure that everyone living in Java and Bali, the two islands where the policy will be implemented first in April, is aware of the policy, Deputy Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Widjajono Partowidagdo said.

The 2012 State budget mandates that the government has to take measures to limit the distribution of subsidized fuels in an attempt to reduce the amount of subsidy starting in April. According to the government’s scenario, only public transportation vehicles, motorcycles and fishermen will be allowed to buy subsidized fuels.

“We will install a monitoring device like an RFID [radio frequency identification] on each public transportation vehicle to monitor and limit its subsidized fuel consumption,” Widjajono told reporters at his office in Jakarta.

“At each gasoline station, public transportation vehicles and motorcycles will have separate lanes from private cars,” he reported. “The installation of monitoring devices and the lane separation are hoping to ensure that subsidized fuels to not fall into the wrong hands,” he added.

“We’ll set a quota for each public transportation vehicle. They can’t buy more than their quota, but they can still buy non-subsidized fuels if they want,” said the Bandung Institute of Technology’s professor.

Regarding the heating tension between the second-largest oil producer in the world, Iran, and the US, which may drive up global oil prices, Widjajono said that the government would not rule out the possibility of raising the subsidized fuel prices. But, he continued, this could only be done in an emergency situation, such as if the global oil prices hit US$150 per barrel.

“Raising the price of subsidized fuels can be done by revising the 2012 state budget or issuing a government regulation in lieu of law [Perpu],” Widjajono said. As part of the new fuel policy, the government plans to provide free natural gas converter kits for public vehicles.

Deputy Finance Minister Anny Ratnawati said that the government had allocated around Rp 900 billion for the fuel-to-gas conversion program.

However, Finance Minister Agus Martowardojo said on Thursday that the budget allocation might not be sufficient and that the government could revise the 2012 state budget to fill the gap.

“From that budget allocation, some cash will be used to prepare gas stations so that they are well prepared for distribution, some for converting fuel into Liquefied Gas for Vehicles (LGV). This is a more interesting option than Compressed National Gas (CNG). We also want LGV to be available for public vehicles and to apply special technology for the converters so that the price can become cheaper,” he said.

“As for CNG, we must prepare sufficient infrastructure, such as pipes,” he added.

Agus also said that he hoped the presidential regulation on the fuel restriction and conversion programs would be issued as soon as possible so that all stakeholders could begin the necessary preparations.

“There are many gas stations that will have to invest massively in this program and a large portion of them are privately owned,” he said.