Jakarta, Feb. 8 -- Chairman of the National Economic Council (DEN) Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan called for the optimization of digitalization to boost the effectiveness of social assistance distribution to be accurate in terms of targets, numbers, and benefits.

"I have witnessed myself how the effectiveness of social protection programs are facing big challenges," he remarked here on Saturday.

Pandjaitan highlighted that some of the challenges are the doubled data of beneficiaries, people not having identity numbers, and people not meeting the requirements to become beneficiaries.

He affirmed that to improve the distribution of social assistance, the government is currently developing the National Integrated Socioeconomic Data (DTSEN) which...