REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, KUPANG -- The regional government of Sabu Raijua District, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), will build 74 retention reservoirs to cope with the impacts of the drought and to meet household and agricultural requirements.

"The plan to develop 75 retention reservoirs with funding drawn from the Sabu Raijua regional government budget (APBD) will be combined with the plan of the Balai Sungai II to build seven reservoirs of the same type," Sabu Raijua District Head Marthen Dira Tome noted here on Wednesday.

Tome stated that the regional government of Sabu Raijua has prioritized the development of the retention reservoirs, locally called embung, as the local people are in dire need of water for carrying out various agricultural and household activities.

"The local people must be provided assistance to utilize their uncultivated land, which has so far been neglected, due to the lack of irrigation. We will provide water by developing reservoirs, so that the local people can cultivate their land," the Sabu Raijua district head remarked.

He said that of the 75 reservoirs planned to be developed in 2015, 25 had been constructed on Raijua Island, and the remaining reservoirs are being developed on Sabu Island.

He explained that the reservoirs will hold three thousand cubic meters of water, which will be used by the farmers to plant secondary crops. However, they are not designed to irrigate rice fields.

Therefore, the district head stated that in the current year, the local government has proposed an APBD allocation for the construction of a large dam such as the Guriola Reservoir, which will be able to hold 450 thousand cubic meters of water.

The large reservoir is expected to be built in Liae Sub-district.

"As reservoirs benefit the people, the government will set a budget in 2016 for the development of 100 dams. So, in the coming five years, some 50 retention reservoirs are expected to be built that will be very helpful to the local community," he noted.

According to Chairisal Manu, the chief of the River Areas Development Planning Affair of the Directorate General of Natural Resources of the Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing, the central government, through his ministry, has set aside funding worth Rp6 trillion to develop six dams in NTT.

The dams are being constructed to overcome the shortage of water in the face of the El Nino phenomenon, which often leads to a prolonged drought.

He said that the six reservoirs had been included in the work plan of the Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing. Therefore, efforts must be made in order to realize the plan based on the already allocated budget.

"The design of the six dams has been completed. What remains to be done is coordination between the local government and the River Areas Development Agency (BWS) of Nusa Tenggara II," he pointed out.

He affirmed that this region still needs some 1.5 million cubic meters of water to meet the needs of the people during the dry season, although, it receives surplus amount of water during the rainy season.

"We have a surplus of water during the rainy season. For this purpose, we need to store the water, so that it will not drain out into the sea," Manu added.

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