The darker side of Indonesia's power plan
Lauren Farrow, AAP Southeast Asia Correspondent - AAP on May 23, 2016, 12:36 pm
Indonesia's ambitious plan to more than double its power supply over the next decade lies at the heart of its push to increase development, encourage investment and boost the country's ailing GDP.
But farmers at the site of what is set to be the country's largest plant say they are casualties of the electricity rollout, having been stripped of their land by "thugs".
For generations Rasmudi Cayadi's family have been toiling the vibrant green rice paddies that abut the sea in the sleepy backwater of Karanggeneng Village in Batang, Central Java.
"My whole character is as a farmer. That's all. My source of earnings, my expertise, it is all in farming," he told AAP.
His two daughters and one son would have inherited the land but in 2011, everything changed when plans were unveiled to build what is slated to be Indonesia's largest power plant.
Rasmudi said hired "thugs" threatened him and told him to sell his land. When he refused, he said he was sent to jail for seven months on a trumped-up assault charge.
Now, after years of fighting, a long grey iron fence separates him and other Batang farmers from their crops.
Like dozens of other farmers who have refused to sell their land, Rasmudi said he has not received compensation for the loss of his land.
Nor would he want it if offered. He just wants his farm back.
The Batang project highlights the tension between Indonesia's thirst for more power and the future of those whose land is acquired.
The $US4 billion ($A5.54 billion) project is just one of hundreds of new sites to be rolled out across Indonesia over the next decade as the country aims to boost electricity supply from over 53,000MW last year to around 122,000MW by 2024.
Government-owned power supplier PT PLN says access in Indonesia ranges from 99.8 per cent in the densely populated capital Jakarta to less than 46 per cent in Papua.
Sofyan Basir, PT PLN director in chief, said people and industry are being left behind.
"In Medan (North Sumatra), many houses have been queuing for electricity for two years. There are hotels still in construction that can't be finished yet because there is still no electricity," he told a forum this month.
Even with this boost over the next decade, PT PLN admits consumption and demand will far outstrip supply.
But Nandang from Batang Legal Aid said unless the government can properly manage land acquisition, communities will continue to be disenfranchised and projects like Batang - which was slated to begin in 2011 but is yet to get off the ground because of widespread opposition - will continue to stall.
"Transparency is needed so that local people know the plan.... The government needs to prioritise human rights."
For Rasmudi and his family, the future is far from clear.
"They (the companies) said they would bring welfare to the people but even before it's built people are in hunger because they cannot work.
"Those who have sold their land, they built a house, bought a motorbike and now, like us, they are unemployed."
A spokeswoman from PT Bhimasena Power Indonesia, one of the companies behind the Batang project, dismissed claims farmers had been threatened.
She told AAP land acquisition complied with government regulations and that "acceptance by society is getting better day to day, they understand the importance and benefits of the existence of the plant".
