The Seremban City Council headquarters in Rahang where the ceremony to declare the city status was held. — Courtesy photo
SEREMBAN city is still lagging far behind other state capitals in the country in terms of development.
It was officially declared a city on Jan 20, 2020, at the new Seremban City Council (MBS) premises at Forest Heights in Rahang.
To me personally, it was a historic event to witness. As a schoolboy, I had seen Seremban grow steadily from a small town in the 1960s to gain municipal council status way back on March 1, 1979. And eventually it became a city on Jan 1, 2020.
In order to attain the city status, the town councils of Seremban and Nilai had to merge to fulfil the appropriate population requirement.
For the past few months, roads were resurfaced, drains were widened and traffic signs were replaced as Negri Sembilan geared up for the 15th General Election on Nov 19 and the state elections next year.
Unfortunately, the main road leading to the flyover in Rasah still has overflowing rainwater during downpours for the past five years and it will cause continuous damage to the road if the drainage is not upgraded.
My family friend, who is 82 years old, said the drains outside his house in Mambau Heights were rebuilt for the first time in 45 years!
In addition, there are several other factors which need to be looked into.
Firstly, there should be more public gardens to make it a green city.
Thus far, the biggest gardens are the Seremban Lake Gardens and the Seremban 2 City Park.
More flowering and big shady trees should be widely planted in housing estates and maintained throughout the year, since the urban areas are turning out to be concrete jungles with heavy traffic and worrying levels of air pollution.
Trees act as natural dust filters and oxygen generators, which are essential for our healthy daily living.
Residents should be encouraged to plant more trees on their own around their houses and make gardening a useful hobby to boost the greenery at a faster rate.
At the same time, MBS enforcement officers should make regular spot checks in housing areas.
For example in my area in Sikamat, there are still abandoned housing lots where “secondary jungles” are thriving freely and abandoned vehicles as well as indiscriminate rubbish dumping have created ideal breeding grounds for Aedes mosquitoes aside from rodents like rats and stray cats and dogs.
My neighbour had to wait nearly two years for MBS to address his complaint regarding a tall tree which dropped leaves covered his house roof and caused other problems. The city council finally came to chop down the tree recently.
Secondly, we need more sports facilities such as running tracks and swimming pools.
Apart from the athletics tracks and swimming pools in Paroi and Seremban 2, the rest of such facilities are located in private sports clubs or educational institutions such as Chung Hua High School in Seremban, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia in Nilai and Matrix Global School in Bandar Seri Sendayan.
Thirdly, there should be more libraries and museums built. Presently we only have the state library in Seremban and the state museum in Labu.
Children should be encouraged to enrich their knowledge through reading physical books and seeing artefacts in person, instead of just spending hours on their smartphones, personal computers and other electronic devices.
As tax-paying residents of the city, we expect a more efficient MBS to make Seremban a modern and healthy city to live in for people of all ages and all walks of life.
Michael CHENG Seremban
