REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA - The government, through the Social Affairs Ministry, has allocated social rice assistance (Rastra) for 2017 worth Rp648.8 billion for East Nusa Tenggara Province (NTB).  "The Rastra allocation for NTB this year amounted to Rp648.8 billion for 473,049 families in 10 districts/municipalities," Social Affairs Minister Khofifah Indar Parawasa said in a press statement here on Sunday.

The minister is on a working visit to NTB. She said the Rastra assistance for Sumbawa district amounted to Rp46.6 billion for 34,040 families. The minister was also checking the rice in warehouses of state logistics board Bulog together with Sumbawa district head Husni Djibril.

She wanted to assure that the rice provided for the families was in good quality. "It should not happen that the rice given to them has bad quality rice. It should be good," she said.

The minister said in Aceh last week that there should be no more lousy rice for Social Rice Assistance recipients. "We hope that there would be no more bad rice given to the Rastra program recipients. In the past, there was lousy rice provided for the program's recipients," the minister said when witnessing the distribution of Rastra assistance by the state logistics board (Bulog) in Takengon, Central Aceh, on Saturday (Jan 14).

She said Bulog also continued to make improvement so that the Rastra provided for the financially week people is decent for consumption. She said that for the time being, the Rastra assistance is provided in the form of cash. After supporting infrastructure is already made ready, assistance will provided in the form of non-cash.

Non-cash food assistance will be coordinated by the local social service offices while Rastra subsidy will remain to be coordinated by the Rastra Coordination Team. Both food subsidy and food assistance will be made available by Bulog. These two programs have differences.

For the Rastra subsidy program, the recipients will pay Rp1,600 per kilogram of rice. Every month, recipients will receive 15 kilogram of rice. 

For non-cash food assistance, family recipients will be assisted with a monthly subsidy of Rp110 thousand that could be spent in the form of rice or other food items at the Gotong Royong electoronic warung or E-Warong.

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