Tasikmalaya, 14 August 2020 - Still in a series of CSR programs in the form of community empowerment in the Covid-19 pandemic era, PT Pertamina Geothermal Energy (PGE) Area Karaha, an affiliate of PT Pertamina (Persero) in collaboration with Koramil 0612 / Tasikmalaya, launched the BuMaLa (Maggot Cultivation) program and Azola) in Dirgahayu Village and Kadipaten Village, Tasikmalaya Regency.
The BuMala program was attended by around 300 participants divided into 30 groups who were members of the ring 1 village of PGE Karaha Area. Since its launch at the end of July 2020, this program has shown quite encouraging results. Currently, the azola ponds and the Black Soldier Fly / BSF (Maggot maggot) cages have been found in many yards, and have even become alternative feed for local livestock.
PGE Area Manager Karaha Area Roy Bandoro said the community empowerment program was intended as an effort by the company to provide new business opportunities for residents at low and affordable production costs that anyone could do. "BuMaLa is an advanced stage of the Jalipesah (Environmental Greening and Waste Management) Program that has been implemented previously," said Roy Bandoro.
This is closely related, said Roy Bandoro, considering that organic waste is the main media source for maggot cultivation. And the majority of organk waste sources come from household waste. "This is where the importance of sorting organic and inorganic waste, which has previously been implemented in the Jalipesah program," he explained.
Roy further said, the community empowerment programs provided by PGE have been able to realize human resource development, as well as strengthening the economy of small and medium enterprises for the community in ring 1 of the PGE Karaha Area. "So in addition to being committed to maintaining the supply of electrical energy for residents in Jamali (Java, Madura Bali), PGE has also contributed significantly in carrying out the CSR program for the welfare of the community around the Karaha unit 1 geothermal power plant," he said.
Roy hopes that through the programs launched by the company for the residents, it will be able to foster community independence, improve living standards by optimizing the potential of local resources as best as possible. "Thus, in due time the citizens will be able to be actively involved in the development process which takes place dynamically, be able to solve the problems faced and be able to make decisions freely and independently," he added.
Maggot is a Black Soldier Fly (BSF) fly larva which is very special compared to other alternative feed ingredients for livestock because it contains complete nutrition for fish and of good quality. In addition, Maggot can be produced in a short time and continuously in sufficient quantities to meet the needs of animal feed. Another advantage, people easily adopt Maggot production technology. Then, in the process, Maggot can also be produced into mag meal, so that it can reduce the cost of producing animal feed.
While Azolla is a water fern plant that lives in the waters. This plant is often found in waterlogged land and also inundated agricultural land, especially in rice fields. This plant has a length of 1.5 - 2.5 cm, the shape of the leaves is small and overlaps with the leaf surface color of reddish green. Azolla plant was able to reduce the use of urea fertilizer up to 65 kg / ha. Azolla is also useful for conserving the use of urea fertilizer, as a base for compost, as fish feed (contains 23–30% protein and also contains legkap essential amino acids) and can also be used as animal feed.
PT Pertamina Geothermal Energy (PGE) is a company engaged in the utilization of geothermal energy and is a subsidiary of PT Pertamina (Persero). PGE's Karaha Unit I Geothermal Power Plant (PLTP) with a capacity of 30MW has been operating commercially on April 6, 2018. The electricity production of PLTP Karaha Unit I has lit 33 thousand houses in Tasikmalaya and its surroundings.
This achievement is a realization of the 35,000MW program launched by the government, which will increase the reliability of the Java-Bali transmission system with an additional 227 Gigawatt hour (GWh) of electricity supply per year.
In its construction, PLTP Karaha Unit I is the most complete project because PGE is working on its own starting from the sub-surface, exploration, piping, power plant to the 25 KM long power transmission tower.
As a form of concern for community empowerment in ring 1 of the operational area, PGE Karaha Area has also launched Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) assistance in the form of an Ecovillage Program. This program is a pilot project for the PGE Karaha Area in an effort to help communities explore their own potential, evaluate the program, and improve or increase their capacity so that they can better help other communities in the future.
