KUCHING: By 2025, all areas in Sarawak will be 100 per cent covered with clean water supply, Minister for Rural Electricity and Water Supply Dato Sri Dr Stephen Rundi disclosed yesterday.
He said for Urban area, currently the coverage is almost about 100 per cent but for the rural area it is only about 40 to 45 per cent covered with clean water.
“We have interventional programme called SAWAS in order to have stand alone treatment plant in the rural areas where we are using cartrition water treatment system to help especially the rural people to at least have safe water to drink,” Dr Rundi said.
On electricity coverage in Sarawak, he said, the same and similar approach is being used.
“But for the whole of Sarawak, up to 2016, it is 87 per cent. So we have interventional programme also called SARES (Sarawak Alternative RES) in order to cover most of the rural areas,” he said when asked by media at a press conference yesterday.”
“We have actually implemented at 52 villages and next year we are going to have 78 villages. We are hoping to cover 100 per cent by the year 2025,” he added.
Dr Rundi said, it is very challenging task to actually cover all the areas. In fact, I can see the success of SARES. When solar was first implemented by KKLW, the problem was the battery. When they installed, everything was good and fine, but after two years, the battery power was really down and the reason being that the people in the longhouse just used as much as they could without looking at the battery sustainability and so on.
“So the SARES programme we have the regulator and they cannot consume more than certain kilowatts so that the batteries can be at least sustainable.
“We will be able have a better programme with SARES and my ministry is looking at all this but our main objective or main masterplan is the water grid and the Borneo Electricity Grid. And now we have inter connection to Kalimantan . These are the thing that we are looking at probably one day it will be Borneo Grid,” he said.
On the Ministry’s target for Sarawak to be 100 per cenr, Dr Rundi said: We are looking by 2025, we should be able to cover 100 per cent but by then our master plan for the Grid and so on where we will be getting our water source from the dams.
“So water source from the dam take for sample Batang Ai for example, Batang Ai can be piped all the way to Sarikei and to Tanjung Manis and along the line there will be cartrition water treatment system . So people have proper water supply pipe and so on.
According to Dr Rundi, the problem now is of course is the NRW , the aging pipe, the AC pipes and so on.
“The aging treatment plants, we have 103 treatment plants and 22 of them are really older than me. So these are very old and need to be replaced and upgraded and so on. It is all in the plan of the Ministry,” he said.
We have made a proper data base for all these and we are now going on line. Meaning monitoring on line billing on line for all the water. Last time we need meter reader they who have to go down and check, In a year probably twice. So this thing just use online. Together with electricty as well we are doing something, and also maybe telecommunication. We have the software and we have benen brief on how it (the software) can be done.
Meanwhile, Dr Rundi said a new programme called MySuria tries to assist people, the B40 Group in the remotest rural area to give them electricity through very small solar penal.
“We are given this pilot project for 200 households to be on trial and later on if it is successful we will extend it further. They are going to sit down in a week or two to identify the kampung and it is actually a nationwide programme and involves RM45 million for a start for the whole nation. I stressed to the minister concerned that Sabah and Sarawak should be given more as we are the real rural people,” he said.
Base on the 200 households, the amount is the most is slightly below RM5 million, he said, adding that the project should be implemented by the end of September.
On a related matter, Rundi informed that in principle, the Chief Minister had agreed to have International Energy Conference to be held in Sarawak. The Malaysian Government has actually won the bidding but we want it to be held in Sarawak because of our hydro power and so on, he said, adding that the conference will be held next October and there will be international speakers.
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Rundi Utilities PC 01 and 02
