“THE rapid growth of the island’s population has shocked everyone here,” Mr I Wayan Sudra, head of Bali’s family planning board, told the media late last year.

He was referring to the latest census statistics showing the population of the tiny island of Bali had reached four million, well above the widely predicted 3.5 million.

Bali may be an extreme case. After all, its robust tourist industry has attracted employment seekers from all over Indonesia. Badung regency and Denpasar municipality, both blessed with important tourist attractions, have an annual population growth of 4 per cent, among the highest in the country.

But the problem of rapid population growth is also a national one. Last year, National Population and Family Planning Coordination Board (BKKBN) head Sugiri Syarief warned that if Indonesia’s population continued to grow at its current rate, it would almost double to 450 million people by 2045.

Given Indonesia’s already inadequate infrastructure, problems relating to garbage, access to clean water, education, transportation and other basic services could multiply.

Most discussions about Indonesia’s population growth, however, tend to be far more optimistic. This is because they focus on the country’s impending “demographic dividend”. While other economies are faced with a greying population, 60 per cent of Indonesia’s population is under 30 years of age. This implies that for the next 10 to 15 years at least, the country will have a productive labour force and local companies will be able to take advantage of strong consumer demand.

The nation’s family planning experts, however, see things differently. To them, the problems facing Indonesia today are the result of a population growing too rapidly. “The problems of transportation, traffic jams, fuel subsidies, food insecurity and so on emerge because the population is too large,” notes Mr Sonny Harmadi, director of the University of Indonesia’s Demographic Institute.

During the Suharto era, the problem of overcrowding on the main island of Java was widely acknowledged. Even today, 57 per cent of Indonesians live in Java, while the island itself constitutes only 7 per cent of the country’s land area.

Then-President Suharto’s solution involved state-sponsored migration to the outer islands. This option is no longer considered politically acceptable because of its tendency to trigger separatist movements and communal violence as native populations respond to “Javanisation”.

But another Suharto-era solution – family planning – could be about to make a comeback. Virtually abandoned during the years following Mr Suharto’s fall in 1998, the programme has since been revitalised.

Last year, the Jakarta authorities launched a programme designed to reduce the number of births in the overcrowded capital. By December, more than 500,000 people had joined the programme, a large majority of them women who had agreed to take birth control pills. A further 37,000 men had received vasectomies.

Information and counselling centres aimed at educating teenagers about reproductive health and birth control had also been set up.

Similar programmes are currently under way in the outer islands. So far, 431,338 people have participated in family planning programmes established in East Kalimantan, for example. Last month, the BKKBN said it was also in the process of providing training for 35,000 nurses in the art of inserting and removing intra-uterine devices.

But vasectomies have not been popular among men, a point that led the head of the Mukomuko district in Bengkulu to offer one million rupiah (S$135) to civil servants willing to undergo the procedure earlier this year. A vasectomy is a medical procedure designed to prevent men from releasing sperm.

More serious opposition has come from the Indonesian Council of Ulema, which recently declared vasectomies “haram”, and therefore not permissible under Islamic law.

Cultural and socio-economic circumstances may also prove to be a barrier. Traditionally, having a large number of children has been seen as a means of ensuring one’s financial security in old age. In a country where access to quality health and social services is still problematic, such a strategy remains appealing.

In Bali, the problem is even more acute. A traditional Balinese couple strives to have at least four children, each of them named according to birth rank: Wayan, Made, Nyoman and Ketut. Urging Balinese to have just two children therefore becomes tantamount to advocating the elimination of all Nyomans and Ketuts from Balinese society.

As with many other social programmes in the democratic era, the success of family planning may well depend upon the commitment of those charged with implementing it. When Mukomuko district chief Ichwan Yunus announced a cash reward to civil servants willing to get a vasectomy, he urged them to be “an example to society”. But he did not say whether he himself would undergo the procedure.

(C) Singapore Press Holdings Limited