More Than 300 Households in Nabire, Central Papua Now Connected to Free Electricity

JAKARTADAILY.ID – The Indonesian government through the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) has connected free electricity to as many as 304 residents in Nabire, Central Papua through the New Electricity Install Assistance Program (BPBL).

The installation of BPBL in Central Papua exceeded the target by 6 percent, where previously it was targeted to be 285 beneficiaries.

Director of Electricity Program Development Wanhar said the installation of the BPBL program nationally exceeded the target from the joint optimization results.

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"Thank God, we have exceeded the target from 80,000 to 80,182 nationally. This is the result of optimizing the budget per region, which varies so that we get more," Wanhar said at the inauguration and first launch of the BPBL Program in Central Papua Province, Saturday, December 10, 2022.

Wanhar further explained that until the third quarter of 2022, Indonesia's Electrification Ratio (RE) reached 99.60 percent. From these data, there are still around 318,470 households that do not have electricity, and most of them are spread in remote areas, especially the Frontier, Outermost, and Disadvantaged (3T) areas.

"One of the government's efforts to increase the electrification ratio, as well as help the public gain access to electricity, is the New Electricity Assistance Program (BPBL) which has the full support of Commission VII DPR RI," said Wanhar.

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Meanwhile, as many as 2,412 heads of households in South Sumatra Province also received free electricity from the Government through the New Electricity Assistance Program (BPBL), which is now 100 percent installed.

Director of Engineering and Environment Dwinugroho said, from this figure, Banyuasin Regency received 1,131 household connections spread across 10 sub-districts.

"Currently there are still poor people who already have a PLN electricity network in front of their houses, but cannot get access to electricity directly due to their inability to pay for the cost of installing a new electricity, so they have to distribute or share electricity connections with neighbors," said Dwinugroho in a written statement quoted Sunday, December 11, 2022.

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Dwinugroho conveyed that the BPBL program was the government's effort to increase the electrification ratio and help the community to gain access to electricity.

This program is also one of the efforts to equalize access to electricity throughout the archipelago by providing assistance for a new installation of 450 VA electricity for poor, non-electrified households (RT) registered in the Integrated Social Welfare Data (DTKS).