Selangor MB Khalid: Can't stop water rationing yet, but will review next week

SHAH ALAM: The water rationing exercise in Selangor will continue for now as only 29 days of supply are left in the Sungai Selangor dam, Mentri Besar Tan Sri Abdul Khalid (pic) said Tuesday.

He said several efforts were underway to supplement the water supply in the state and if the initiatives went accordingly, the scheduled rationing exercise would be reviewed.

The level at the Sungai Selangor dam was at 38.9% as on Tuesday, a slight improvement since last week.

The Selangor Water Management Authority (Luas) and Selangor Drainage and Irrigation Department (DID) have started carrying out efforts to collectively supply up to 1,000 million litres per day (MLD) of water to the state for the next six months, Khalid added.

The measures include pumping water from nearby streams into the ponds surrounding the dam, which supplies 60% of the state's requirements.

"Luas and JPS have already started carrying out this effort, which is expected to produce about 400MLD of water.

"Apart from this, the state is also looking into ways to tap underground water, which has the potential to produce between 300MLD and 400MLD of water," he told reporters after officiating the Jom Baca 10 Minit programme at the Raja Tun Uda Library here.

Another effort, Khalid said, was to engage the help of the Thai government to carry out "The Royal Rainmaking Technology" to harvest rainwater at the dam at least three times a week.

"Luas has been ordered to contact the Thai government for this purpose and we are hoping to use this technology by next week," he said, adding that it was more efficient then the traditional cloud-seeding methods carried out in the past.

He said the technology, which was patented by the King of Thailand, has been proven effective after several countries sought its expertise during droughts.

In terms of cost, Khalid said the technology did not differ much from the traditional cloud-seeding exercise.

On buying water from Negri Sembilan, Khalid said it was not the best the solution, citing that the cost of transporting water to the Sungai Selangor dam would be expensive.

"Apart from being too costly to channel the water to the dam, it is also not worth it as the offer (by the Negri Sembilan government) is only five MLD when our requirement is 1,000MLD," he said.