Low on water: Residents collect clean water provided by the local administration on Oct. 13, 2023, in the drought-hit village of Gunungguruh in Sukabumi regency, West Java. The prolonged dry season has dried up wells in the village.(Photo:Antara/VNA) Jakarta, October 31 (VNA) – Indonesian President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has announced that his government will provide direct cash aid to assist communities affected by the drought caused by the EL Nino phenomenon.
Accordingly, the El Nino BLT programme involves the disbursement of 400,000 IDR (25 USD) in cash per family, distributed in two stages, with 200,000 IDR each in November and December.
It has a total budget of 7.52 trillion IDR. This fund will be distributed to 18.8 million impoverished households.
Apart from the El Nino BLT programme, the government will also extend the distribution of rice assistance to 21.3 million beneficiary families until the end of 2023. This assistance consists of 10 kilogrammes of rice per month, available from September to December 2023.
For the rice assistance scheme, the government has allocated 8 trillion IDR for September-November and an additional 2.67 trillion IDR for December 2023.
Previously, it has attempted to import an additional of 1.5 million tonnes of rice to solve the expected poor harvest situation across the country./.
