Current water issues affecting four districts in Selangor can be resolved with the construction of the Langat 2 water treatment plant in Bukit Serdang, for which the Selangor government has yet to give approval.
Syarikat Bekalan Air Selangor (Syabas) chairman Tan Sri Rozali Ismail said the tunnel channelling raw water from Sungai Semantan in Pahang was ready.
“But without the Langat 2 treatment plant, the water cannot reach the affected districts. We are just waiting for the state government’s approval for the project.
“However, it will take three years to build the plant, so work must begin this year if Langat 2 is to be ready by 2015,” Rozali said here yesterday.
He was commenting on the report that millions of residents in Hulu Langat, Sepang, Kuala Langat and Petaling would be facing unscheduled water cuts and low water pressure well into the Chinese New Year if demand for the precious commodity continued to rise.
Rozali added that the Federal Government had given the all-clear for the Langat 2 project to increase water production as demand had risen by 3.5% every year.
The RM8.65bil Langat 2 project is expected to treat 1.89 billion litres of raw water for Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya until 2025.
Selangor Mentri Besar Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim’s press secretary Arfa’eza A. Aziz said the state government still needed to discuss the finer details of the project.
She also questioned the priority given by the Federal Government to the completion of the project before the state’s water restructuring exercise was completed.
“Relevant parties, including the Energy, Green Technology and Water Ministry and the National Water Services Commission and other stakeholders, have declined to talk about the water restructuring in Selangor,” she claimed.
She also said the state government would wait for a report from the Lembaga Urus Air Selan-gor on dam capacity and water demand before making further decisions.
At 44.6km, the tunnel, which is the largest and longest in South-East Asia, will channel water from Sungai Semantan to Sungai Hulu Langat in Selangor.
Last year, Energy, Green Technology and Water Minister Datuk Seri Peter Chin had stated that Selangor would face serious water problems by 2014 without Langat 2.
Khalid had then denied there would be water shortage, saying the state was sufficient in water resources until 2019.
