President Prabowo Subianto inaugurated five dams worth Rp9.79 trillion on Friday, July 10, 2026, with the main ceremony at Meninting Dam in Bukit Tinggi village, Gunung Sari subdistrict, West Lombok Regency, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB). In the same hybrid event, the government also inaugurated the Keureuto and Rukoh dams in Aceh, the Jlantah dam in Central Java, and the Sidan dam in Bali.

"This afternoon, Friday, July 10, 2026, by the grace of God Almighty, I, Prabowo Subianto, President of the Republic of Indonesia, hereby inaugurate the Meninting dam in NTB..." Prabowo said in his remarks at the site, before moving on to symbolically inaugurate the four other dams.

A multipurpose dam is infrastructure designed to store water for more than one function at once, in this case irrigating rice fields, supplying raw water to settlements, and generating potential hydropower. All five projects have been under construction since 2015 and are only now complete and inaugurated, the product of two separate administrations.

How much do these five dams benefit farmers?

A combined 279.98 kilometers of irrigation channels from the five dams serve about 40,000 hectares of rice fields, with a potential output of 720,000 tons of rice a year. Public Works Minister Dody Hanggodo called that figure a realistic projection once the network runs at full capacity.

"God willing, with support from the Minister of Agriculture, this infrastructure can produce roughly 720,000 tons of rice a year," Dody said.

In West Lombok, Meninting Dam holds 9.91 million cubic meters and cost Rp1.473 trillion. It irrigates 1,559 hectares and supplies 0.15 cubic meters of raw water per second to about 100,000 people. Dody said the dam also eases water disputes among farmers that have long caused friction in the field. "This dam, sir, with respect, can reduce horizontal conflict," he told Prabowo.

The four other dams add a combined capacity of about 361 million cubic meters. Altogether, the five dams, including Meninting, supply 3.6 cubic meters of raw water per second and cut flood risk across 932 hectares. Keureuto Dam in North Aceh is the most expensive in nominal terms at Rp2.961 trillion, with a capacity of 215.94 million cubic meters and irrigation for 14,695 hectares. Rukoh Dam in Pidie follows at Rp2.483 trillion for 128.65 million cubic meters and irrigation for 12,194 hectares. Sidan Dam in Gianyar cost Rp1.8 trillion for a capacity of 5.76 million cubic meters and irrigation for 9,598 hectares, while Jlantah Dam in Karanganyar cost Rp1.08 trillion for 10.97 million cubic meters and irrigation for 1,494 hectares. Of the five, Meninting is actually the cheapest in nominal terms at Rp1.473 trillion, though, as the next section shows, it has the highest cost per irrigated hectare.

Why is Meninting's irrigation so much costlier than the Aceh dams?

Construction costs per irrigated hectare vary sharply across the five dams. Meninting cost about Rp945 million per hectare and Jlantah about Rp723 million per hectare, while Sidan cost only about Rp188 million, Keureuto Rp202 million, and Rukoh Rp204 million per hectare. That means Meninting cost nearly five times as much as the two Aceh dams to serve a comparable area of rice fields, even though Keureuto remains the most expensive project in total nominal terms.

The government has not publicly explained whether the gap stems from Lombok's hilly terrain, the construction materials used, or non-irrigation components such as the raw water supply for 100,000 people that also weighs on Meninting's budget. Without that technical detail, the public can only compare the final figures without knowing the exact cause.

A speech about a "debt of gratitude" amid an infrastructure ceremony

The Meninting ceremony ran as a technical ministry event, complete with capacity figures and rice production targets. But Prabowo's remarks turned personal when he brought up NTB's history of backing him.

"I'm proud to meet directly with the people of NTB, who have supported me from the start even though I lost several times," Prabowo said. He continued, "I still feel I owe the people of NTB a lot. Don't worry, we still have however many years ahead of us."

NTB has been Prabowo's voter base since several earlier presidential elections, long before he finally won in 2024. That remark, especially the promise that "we still have however many years ahead of us," casts Meninting Dam as more than a ministry irrigation project. It reads as a signal that the symbolic repayment of NTB's political loyalty will continue through the rest of his term.

A project spanning two administrations

All five dams are national strategic projects that broke ground in 2015, so their completion crossed two presidential terms before Prabowo inaugurated them together. The government has used this kind of joint inauguration, one main site linked by hybrid broadcast to other provinces, several times before to extend a single ceremony's symbolic reach to multiple regions at once.

For Prabowo's cabinet, the moment also doubles as a showcase of its food security agenda, at a time of public scrutiny over other programs such as the Free Nutritious Meals program (MBG), which has faced target cuts and a budget overhaul.

What to watch

The 720,000-ton rice target can only be tested against production data in the next planting season, not on the day of the ceremony. The dams' potential energy output, 9.635 MW of hydropower and 345.94 MW of floating solar, remains a projection with no groundbreaking date set. Claims of reduced water conflict among farmers in West Lombok will be tested by field reports after the first harvest, while the gap in cost per hectare between the dams remains open to public scrutiny until the government offers a technical explanation.