The Government has stood firm with its decision to implement the Langat 2 treatment plant project (Langat 2), claiming that it is more economical and will avert the water crisis in Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya.
Deputy Energy, Green Technology and Water Minister Datuk Noriah Kasnon told the Dewan Rakyat the proposed membrane technology by the Selangor state government will only serve as a short-term solution but would not be practical in the long run.
“Based on our research since the 1990s, we find that the best decision that is more economical and viable, is through the Pahang-Selangor interstate raw water transfer,” she said in a reply to a supplementary question by Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim (PKR-Bandar Tun Razak) during question time in Parliament Tuesday .
Khalid had asked the Government whether it would review its plans to implement the Langat 2 project and instead implement the membrane technology to solve the water crisis in Selangor.
Noriah also noted that there was no evidence that the membrane technology proposed by the Selangor state government would be able to increase the capacity of clean water.
“It may be able to clean and improved the quality of the water but it would not be able to increase the water supply.
“The technology also required a lot of raw water but they do not consider that our river usage are almost at the optimum level which later could cause the problem of overloading,” she said.
She also urged the Selangor state government to reconsider its decision as the problem of water shortages is expected to worsen by 2017.
“We hope that the Selangor Mentri Besar will change his mind and put the interest of rakyat first before anything else,” she said.
The first phase of the Langat 2 project is expected to produce some 1130mil litre of water per day and as at September 30, the overall progress of the project is at 28.39 per cent compared to the actual plan which is at 66.34 per cent, she said.
“The project is experiencing a delay of 589 days of working days,” she added. She also noted that the Federal government had allocated RM606mil for several mitigation projects that could avoid the water problem in Selangor, Wilayah Persekutuan and Kuala Lumpur.
“The Selangor state government is also involved in the mitigation projects and it shows that indirectly that they are admitting that there will be water shortages problem in the three places as soon as 2014 if no actions were to be taken,” she told Khairy Jamaluddin
