Ref: Sekalipun air turun berlimpah-limpah dari langit di NKRI , tetapi air bersih untuk konsumsi peduduk tiap hari menjadi problem untuk diperoleh. Apakah ini hadiah rezim berkuasa kepada rakyat?
http://www.thejakartapost.com/bali-daily/2012-06-02/water-scarcity-still-haunt-poor-villages.html Water scarcity still haunt poor villages by Agnes Winarti on 2012-06-02 Thirst: BD/Anggara Mahendra A local woman drinks straight from the pail she uses to take water from the concrete water tank the villagers in Tianyar, one of the island’s poorest and most arid areas, employ to harvest rainwater. Every day it takes a four-hour walk of more than 8 kilometers for farmer Ketut Bali to bring home two buckets of clean water for his family of seven. Ketut is a resident of Dusun Dalem, the most remote hamlet of Tianyar Tengah village in the Kubu district of Karangasem regency. “Sometimes my wife collects the water. But she can only carry one bucket,” said Ketut, who farms corn, cassava and cashew nuts, and tends to two cows in his backyard. “If I had a motorcycle, I would have taken the shorter route, about 5 kilometers downhill,” Ketut said, mentioning another water source in the neighboring hamlet, Pedahan Kelod. Kubu district is in the most arid mountainous region of Karangasem. The district has nine villages, which includes the 1,605 hectare Tianyar Tengah village, which has 12 hamlets, more than all the other villages. For the past 20 years, the villagers of the 12 hamlets have mostly depended on two artesian wells made available by the local government. Dusun Dalem hamlet, which is about 1.5 hours by car (42 kilometers) from the Karangasem administration offices, only had electricity installed last August, while roads were first asphalted in 2010. Made Sudica Ambara, division head for village community development (PMD) for Kubu district, said that the administration had done everything from building rainwater butts — locally known as cubang — to operating a mobile water tank; the latter he acknowledged had yet to operate in Tianyar Tengah, which has more than 2,397 families. “The vast and mountainous terrains are just too difficult to reach,” Sudica said. “It’s just ridiculous that there’s only one water tanker for more than 1,000 families. What about licensing a private company to run the mobile water tanker? There’s just no political will from the government to fix this situation,” regretted I’m An Angel program director Asana Viebeke Lengkong. Currently, to have the tanker deliver 5,000 liters of water up the hill would cost up to Rp 150,000 (US$16) in delivery expenses, thus the rainwater harvesting method has been seen as the most economical way to fulfill the residents’ water needs, at least during rainy times. There are currently some small cubang scattered around Dusun Dalem hamlet. “Unfortunately, they didn’t build the cubang properly, which resulted in poor quality water being available for consumption,” said Viebeke during a recent visit to the hamlet to deliver funding for the construction of four properly designed cubang worth a total of Rp 60 million as part of the I’m An Angel program, which has helped build 28 cubang around the Kubu district. Due to low awareness of health and sanitation, most, if not all, villagers consume the water directly from the cubang, which is mostly covered with moss. “After facilitating the discussion on how to build the cubang properly, and where to get the building materials, such sand and stones, we provide the cash for the villagers involved in carrying the materials up the hill and in the overall construction,” said Viebeke, as she highlighted the community-participatory approach of the I’m An Angel programs, which cover interrelated aspects of education, health, nutrition, economic empowerment and environmental awareness. Beside the cubang construction support, other economic empowerment efforts also include microfinancing for the villagers to raise their own cattle and to produce value-added products from the natural harvests that are abundant in the area, which includes cashew nuts and papyrus that can be processed into sugar products and rattan plates. “The villagers usually sell their cashew nuts raw, which only brings in Rp 8,000 per kilogram, while if they process the nuts as snacks, they can get as much as Rp 80,000 to Rp 90,000 per kilogram,” said Clementus Jehanam, a worker on the Pemuda Sarjana Penggerak Pembangunan di Pedesaan (Rural Development Motivator) PSP-3 program, which has been newly launched by the Youth and Sports Ministry. Coordinator of the Bali PSP-3, Dharmawan acknowledged that language had become the main barrier to approach the villagers, most of whom did not speak Indonesian fluently and were unable to read or write. “These remote villages are a completely different world, a different culture. Language skills are essential,” said Viebeke, a non-Balinese who speaks the language and has lived in Kuta since the 1970s. “Government officials can’t just work behind their desks, they have to actively reach out to these people, because the villagers are not going to come to your offices,” said Viebeke, citing the urgency for the local administration to collaborate with companies running corporate social responsibility programs on the island to improve the livelihood of those living in remote areas. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
