REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- The Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) Ministry will establish a task force to accelerate the supply of electricity to 17,520 schools.

ESDM Minister Sudirman Said affirmed that his side and the Ministry of Education and Culture will, within one week, verify the availability of electricity in schools.

"Beginning next week, we will visit schools, and the results of our verification will be used as the basis for accelerating the supply of power to them," Minister Said stated.

He added that schools were the stepping stones to progress in the country. So the government should give priority to ensuring the supply of electricity to schools.

Currently, of the 208,000 schools in the country, 17,520, which accounts for 8.4 percent of the total, have yet to receive electricity.

The supply of electricity to schools is part of the government's target of ensuring the electrification of 99 percent of the country by 2015.

Furthermore, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo said that Indonesia has to achieve two targets to overcome the power crisis in the next five years.

The two targets are to build new power plants with power generating capacity of 35,000 megawatts and achieving household electrification ratio of 100 percent by 2019.

The president also pointed out that the household electrification ratio is expected to reach 85 percent by the end of this year.

According to data from the ESDM Ministry, the electrification ratio was only 80 percent by the end of 2013.

"Supply still falls short of demand," the minister remarked, adding that a significant increase had been recorded in the electrification ratio.

"In 1980, the ratio was only 8 percent, rising in the following years to 28 percent in 1990, to 53 percent in 2000, and to 65.10 percent by the end of 2008," he noted.

He affirmed that power plants would be built by the government in places where electrification ratios were the lowest.

The electrification target is set at 3 million houses per year, with the figure reaching 99 percent by 2020, he said.

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