Tommo Dam in Mamuju to Cost Rp360 Billion

Mamuju (ANTARA News) - Building a dam in Tommo subdistrict, some 100 kilometers from Mamuju in West Sulawesi, would cost Rp360 billion, West Sulawesi Governor Anwar Adnan Saleh said.

"The building of Tommo dam was continued in the last two years since 2009 with a budget of Rp360 billion," Governor Anwar Adnan Saleh said here Wednesday.

The budget would be provided under the State Budget and had been approved by the central government, he said.

"The Tommo dam in Mamuju regency will be built by the West Sulawesi administration and slated for completion in 2011, and will be enjoyed by the farmers," he said.

He said the project would be the biggest dam in West Sulawesi to irrigate 17,000 hectares of farmland in four subdistricts in Mamuju, namely Tommo, Pangale, Sampaga, and Papalang.

He said the completion of the dam would be followed by the government building a technical irrigation system in the four subdistricts.

He said the irrigation system was expected to expand the farmland in Mamuju which would have a technical irrigation system relying on the water resources from the Tommo dam covering 17,000 hectares.

Thus, he said, the West Sulawesi farmland which would have a technical irrigation system would cover 33,000 hectares, because 16,000 hectares of the farmland in Polman regency as a production center of West Sulawesi had also been irrigated with a technical irrigation system.

He hoped with the expansion of the farmland the technical irrigation system in West Sulawesi would boost rice productivity by 8.5 tons per hectare meeting the target of the regional administratioin. (H-NG/R013)