Kotapanjang hydro power plant still faces problem

The Kotapanjang hydro power plant located at the border between West Sumatra and Riau provinces still has a problem with former landowners although the power plant has operated since 1998.

Kompas reported on Tuesday that about 800 residents, who had been relocated to make a way for the construction of the plant, had demanded the government to move them to other area.

The residents said that the land which had been given to them as the compensation of their properties used for the power plant construction was not as fertile as promised.

They said that rubber trees planted in the land did not grow well and many of them were even dying.

The larger part of the 1,508-hectare rubber plantations allocated for the residents could not grow. About 1,231 hectares need rehabilitation and other 92 hectares should be replanted, according to Muchlis Muchtar, the chairman of the provincial office of the national planning board in West Sumatra.(*)