The program grants a 100 percent discount for homes and businesses within the 450 volt-ampere (VA) category and a 50 percent discount for homes within the 900 VA subsidized category. These are the two-lowest power categories under regulations.

“Our system is ready to resume distribution as this is essentially a [program] extension,” said Bob Saril, customer management director at state-owned electricity giant PLN, the company executing the program, in a statement on Jan. 1.

The electricity discount for homes was first rolled out in April 2020 while the discount for businesses later in May. Both programs, initially slated for less than six months, were eventually extended until December last year.

Read also: Jokowi announces free electricity, discounts for households hardest hit by COVID-19 impacts

The discount adds to a list of government relief programs that have been extended into 2021 as the COVID-19 pandemic continues in Southeast Asia’s most populous country, where electricity counts as the fourth-biggest expense among poor homes behind food, rent and transportation fuel.

Indonesia’s open unemployment rate surged to its highest level since 2011 as some 2.67 million lost their jobs as of August last year, according to the latest Statistics Indonesia (BPS) data, and economists say it might rise in 2021 amid continued sluggish economic activity.

“Other than that incomes are still unstable or even gone, there are higher expenses,”Agus Suyanto, secretary of the Indonesian Consumers Foundation (YLKI), which helped many homes with electricity-related woes last year, told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

He specifically referred to the raising of Health Care and Social Security Agency (BPJS Kesehatan) premiums from Rp 25,000 to Rp 35,000 per month for third-class service subscribers. The premiums for first-and second-class service subscribers remain unchanged.

In that sense, the continued electricity discount was “good news” for struggling consumers, he said. However, he also mentioned a palpable jealousy among 900VA unsubsidized customers, who did not receive the incentive, and their subsidized counterparts.

Read also: Electricity rates, discounts to remain unchanged in first quarter of 2021

Aside from the discount program, the government previously ordered PLN to maintain a low electricity rate for homes above the 900VA category until March 2021. The rate was lowered by 1.5 percent to Rp 1,444.7 (10 US cents) per kilowatt hour starting October 2020.

“[This decision] protects the peoples’ purchasing power and supports stability as well as economic recovery,” said ministry spokesman Agung Pribadi on Dec. 4.

Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry data places the cost of the discounts at Rp 1.45 trillion per month for 31.88 million homes and Rp 21 billion per month for 501,510 small businesses.

Ministry officials were not immediately available for comment over the discount extension.

Meanwhile, YLKI chairman Tulus Abadi told the Post separately that the program missed out many urban poor who lived in the 1,300 VA category boarding houses. He said job loss was more rampant among the urban poor even when compared to the rural poor.

Read also: Govt to spend $1 billion on electricity fee relief

He gave another example of government relief shortcomings in swelling household phone credit expenses as Indonesian students, most of whom do not enjoy home Wi-Fi, rely on mobile data to follow distance learning. 

The Education and Culture Ministry and Finance Ministry has launched a free phone credit program to help such students but, as Tulus noted, many students had either been excluded from the program or did not own smartphones.

“[The electricity discount extension] is like candy for the people. There are more pressing problems that are untouched,” he said, also on Monday.

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