The Indonesian government will allocate some 30 trillion rupiah (3.3 billion U.S. dollars) next year for the development of disadvantaged regions, a sharp increase from 9 trillion rupiah in 2007, an official said Friday.
State Minister for the Development of Disadvantaged Regions Lukman Edy said the fund was expected to cover the development of some 50,000 underdeveloped villages across the country through empowerment programs.
"Around 70 percent of underdeveloped villages don't have basic supporting infrastructure. People live in isolated areas without access to electricity, clean water and irrigation," Lukman was quoted by the national Antara news agency as saying in the East Kalimantan capital of Samarinda.
He said the empowerment program involved local people in all stages areas of the development process; from planning to building.
He said each village would be allocated a fund of up to 250million rupiah (27,000 dollars) and the residents would be allowed to decide how they would use the money to develop their area.
The 2007 program covered around 15,000 villages. Indonesia has some 73,000 underdeveloped villages with as many as 35,000 in the eastern part of the country.
Source: Xinhua
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