Selangor defends lifting of water rationing

SHAH ALAM: The Selangor government has again defended its decision to end the water rationing exercise, saying that prior studies were carried out before doing so.

Executive councillor for infrastructure, Dr Yunus Hairi, said the state was confident of the measures it took to address the problem.

"Among the state's plans is to pump water from nearby ponds into the Sungai Selangor dam and through this, the water distribution from the dam will be more efficient," he said in a statement issued Monday.

He cited efforts to seek the help of the Thai government in using cloud-seeding technology to harvest rain at the dam.

These were among the reasons why the state had decided to call off the rationing that has been troubling over a million consumers, he said.

Yunus was commenting on a statement by Association of Water and Energy Research Malaysia president S. Piarapakaran that the state was gambling on the fate of the people by lifting the rationing despite the water level at the Sungai Selangor dam not reaching the 55% mark.

"He (Piarapakaran) should look into the efforts of the state government in handling the water crisis to get a better understanding," he said.

Piarapakaran was quoted in a Malay daily as saying that the state's efforts in addressing the water crisis such as the use of membrane technology was irrelevant.