GOVT TO ALLOCATE RP37.0 TRILLION FOR PEOPLE'S WELFARE MAINTENANCE

Jakarta, Aug 3 (ANTARA) - The government will allocate Rp37.0 trillion from the 2010 State Budget for the maintenance of people's welfare, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said.

The budget had been drawn up in conformity with the priorities of the government's work plan (RKP 2010), Yudhoyono said in his state-of-the-nation address to introduce the bill on the 2010 State Budget and the Financial Note at an extraordinary plenary session of the House of Representatives (DPR) here on Monday.

He said the budget would be for people's welfare maintenance and institutional restructuring and implementation of a social security system in the country.

"The expected target from this priority is to lower the level of poverty to 12-13.5 percent," the president said.

In the meantime, the president said the allocated budget to improve the quality of Indonesia's human resources in 2010 was projected to reach Rp51.2 trillion.

The head of state said the targets to be achieved by the allocated budget would cover among other things the sectors of education, health, nutritional improvement, and family planning program.

The education sector includes improvement of access to and equitability in the quality basic education level for all children aged 7-15 years, lowering of the number of dropouts, improvement of the quality of education, and improvement of educators' welfare.

In the health sector it was for the availability of basic and referral health facilities and the assurance for the poor to obtain basic health services in community health center (Puskesmas) as well as in third-class hospitals.

The head of state said nutritional improvement would deal with the extended scope of supplementary food besides mother's milk (ASI) for the children of poor families aged 6-24 months.