Jakarta (ANTARA News) - President Joko Widodo has called on his cabinet ministers to discuss social programs at the Presidential Palace here on Monday.

Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Darmin Nasution, Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture Puan Maharani, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani, Social Service Minister Khofifah Indar Parawansa, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Iqnatus Jonan, and State Enterprises Minister Rini Soemarno, among others, were present at the meeting.

Speaking to the press after the meeting at the Presidential Palace, Mulyani revealed that a wide range of social programs, particularly those related to the less-fortunate groups, were discussed during the meeting.

One of the social programs is related to the rice subsidy. The president called for making efforts to streamline the mechanism of distributing the rice subsidy to 44 districts in the country.

"We also evaluate the outlook of the revised state budget, particularly when it comes to the oil prices, which remained high at the start of this year, but they tend to fall now. We also discussed what is our stand on the calculation of our subsidy, and how we can manage what has happened until the second semester," she said.

Social Service Minister Parawansa said the amount of subsidy, under the Family Hope Program (PKH), reaching Rp10 million has been returned to the governments working plan (RKP).

"The PKH has been returned to RKP. The government plans to set it at Rp10 million," she added.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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