Just like the years before,
after Idul Fitri 2014 city dwellers who rushed for their hometowns were
returning to the big cities, but holding hands with friend or relative who
tried to live a better life in Jakarta or other big cities. This was known as
urbanization that happened after every Lebaran.
Massive exodus of people from villages to cities was
never ending, especially during backflow rush after Idul Fitri.
Economic discrepancy between regions and big cities was
reckoned as the main cause of urbanization. Big cities like Jakarta, Surabaya
and Bandung were the main destinations, and people moved from villages to
cities in search of a better life.
Urbanization in big cities posed big problem for the
Municipality; the villages where the migrants came from were economically
unpromising and they saw that cities were the hub of development so it was only
natural that migrants were tempted to gamble for life in cities.
Empirically urbanization was always in parallel with
development. Today development in cities especially Jakarta was blooming and
posed as magnet to migrants; so the blame should not be put on the migration
itself but rather on Central Government’s policy for allowing uneven
distribution of property.
It showed that the regional autonomy program was
improper; the program could have been accomplished by downsizing migration and
tapping the respective potentials to suppress urbanization flow while regional
development could be exercised. From many years of experience there were 3
thinkable solutions to minimize urbanization :
Firstly to forbid villagers to migrate to the cities had
been exercised today, but the result had been at minimum because it sounds
authoritarian.
Secondly to balance up development between villages and
cities, where today villages were still reliant on the agricultural sector,
while in fact development should be on the overall including the industry,
manufacturing, service and infra-structure sectors.
Thirdly, to develop small towns in the regions as new
development centers. In fact city development in the regions hade been made
easy with Regional Autonomy Program, so the Provincial Government had greater
authority to build their respective regions.
Data of the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigrations
[Kemnakertranss] had it that migrations all of Indonesia during every Idul
Fitri was around 1 million people. The destination cities were among others
Jakarta, Bandung, Surabaya, Medan, Batam, and Semarang.
The Ministry had captured the essence of urbanization
phenomenon in Indonesia, among the fact was that newcomers were not armed with
skill capital to earn a living in the cities; so the excess if urbanization
must be anticipated to prevent unemployment and social outburst in the cities.
The menakertrans was opinion that possible way top
anticipate urbanization was to encourage provincial authorities to develop
growth centers in the rural areas. The Ministry had fostered collaboration with
local Governments to overcome unemployment in their respective places.
To do so, governors must develop the labor sector whereby
to employ as many people as possible. Accordingly they should actively drum up
investors whereby to start business and increase employment opportunities.
Besides, various infra structure development must be enhanced by involving as
many people as possible.
Besides, all parties must actively enhance alternative
programs like entrepreneurship, labor intensive projects, and technological
application to promote economic development in other Indonesia regions. Support
for entrepreneurs by provincial authorities could be by way of facilitating
training programs for starters.
By promoting entrepreneurship it was expected that job
opportunities could be opened. The Ministry of Labor and Transportations also
supported development of 132 productive village spread out in 33 provinces in
Indonesia.
To arm migrating workforce with skill, the Ministry
offered job seekers to make the best of available workshops and training
centers available in all of Indonesia, where job seekers could learn and step
up competence.
Other solution was to build economy and industry centers
in the regions through the MP3 El Masterplan. Serious implementation by the
Central Government and sound support by local Government to MP3 El Program
through 6 economic corridors might help to keep rural people from migrating to
the cities.
Politically the MP3EI program was intended to speed up
even outspreading of development all over the country based on each respective
local characteristics of the region. To illustrate, the Bali and Nusa Tenggara
provinces were prioritized for tourism.
About urbanization, noteworthy was the statement of
Finance Minister Chatib Basri who stated that urbanization as socio-economic
problem could be overcome by modernizing agriculture. Urbanization was a
problem that happened all over the world because of discrepancy in wages level
between rural and urban areas.
The effort to promote agricultural sector could not be
done by restricting import but by modernizing agriculture to increase farmer’s
income. If productivity and wages were increased it would prevent villagers
from migrating to the cities.
Today urbanization was happening because workers’ income
was better than farmers’ income, and productivity of the industrial sector was
better than the agricultural center. Urbanization was a phenomenon that
happened even in developed countries and reformation of the agricultural
sectors was to reduce burden of the big cities. (SS)
Business New - August 8, 2014
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