Arghea Desafti Hapsari
THE JAKARTA POST/JAKARTA

An increase of 32.5 million people over the last 10 years could indicate a population boom, says an expert, on the heels of a presidential announcement of the preliminary results of the nations latest census.

A boom may make the government miss its development targets for education and primary healthcare, University of Indonesias Demographic Institute director Sonny Harry B. Harmadi said.The country .saw population growth of 1.49 percent per year from 2000-2010, he added.”This is higher than the population growth in the previous 10-year period, which was 1.4 percent per year, and higher than the projected 1.2 percent growth estimate made by the BPS after the census in 2000,” he told The Jakarta Post, referring to the Central Statistics Agency.

Sonny said if the government failed to curb new births, the country could face a population boom.”Even with 1.2 percent growth per year, by 2060 our population will be near half a billion,” he added.President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono announced Monday that the BPS recent nationwide census had counted 237.6 million people in Indonesia, up from 205.1 in 2000, ensuring that the country will remain the worlds fourth largest, after China, India and the US.

The population has more tharl tripled in the last 80 years, Sonny said, adding that the increased growth rate could be attributed to dysfunctional government-run family planning programs.”This is a warning for the government to immediately revitalize family planning programs,” he added.Yudhoyono said in the State of the Nation Speech on Monday that the government must manage Indonesias population growth and the country must ensure its family planning programs are successful.

National Family Planning Board (BKKBN) chairman Sugiri Syarief, said family planning has been paid little attention over the last 10 years.”The BPS has made its projections using the assumption that family planning would be carried out as well as it was in the 1990s but… since the beginning of the reform, family planning has been neglected,” he said.The country has only had a legal basis for the programs since 2007, he told the Post.”Only then did we have a regulation on decentralization and family planning,” he said.

The BKKBN has since been revamping its family planning programs, Sugiri said, adding that 92 percent of regencies have established family planning institutions, though most were still attached to other offices that deal with other issues such as prosperity or womens empowerment.Regional administrations are still reluctant to establish dedicated local family planning units, called BKKBD, as mandated in the 2009 Demography and Family Planning Law.

“The Home Ministry has issued a circular limiting the number of local agencies or offices. Regents are, of course, paying more attention to the ministrys circular because the home minister is the one signing their appointment decrees,” he said.He added that the BKKBN needed an annual budget of Rp 3 trillion (US$333 million) to Rp 4 trillion to meet the national target of reducing growth rate to 1.1 percent by 2015.The government allocated Rp 1.6 trillion for family planning this year.