KUCHING: Logistics and aging facilities are the greatest challenges facing the Rural Water Supply Department (JBALB) in resolving the water supply woes in the state’s identified critical and stressed areas.
Its director Chang Kuet Shian said some of the treatment plants require more than a day — by flight, water transport and by road — to be reached.
He said to date, a total of 90 water treatment plants in the state were under the care of the department.
Most of these plants are located in the rural areas, which falls under the jurisdiction of JBALB, one of the four water authorities in the state. Three others are Kuching Water Board, Sibu Water Board and Northern Region Water Board (LAKU).
Chang said many of the plants and their piping systems were old, over 30 years old and beyond repair.
He said logistics and age aside, the other big challenge faced by JBALB was the water source, especially in peat swamp and coastal areas.
He said the problem with water sources from peat swamp areas was an increase in the ammonia content during the dry season which seriously affected the water quality.
“As for the water source in the coastal area, the problem is related to saltwater,” he added.
According to Chang, vandalism of its facilities by unscrupulous individuals is also another big challenge faced by JBALB.
The act of vandalism not only cost huge additional expenditures but often disrupted the otherwise smooth supply of water to the areas concerned, he lamented.
Chang added all the challenges did not dampen JBALB’s spirit in solving the water supply issue.
“Instead, the challenges spur us to work even harder to resolve the issues at hand.
“What we need most is the people’s understanding and not to simply hurl accusations at us. That’s why we are revealing all these challenges so that the people will be able to see what we are going through,” he stressed.
Chang said so far, JBALB had a total of 230,000 registered connections statewide.
On the on-going people’s projects under the Sarawak Water Grid Programme involving RM2.8 billion allocation and approved by the state government last year, Chang said so far, a total of 370 projects had been awarded to successful contractors, mostly through open tender system.
“They are at various levels of implementation and processes. Some are currently being implemented, while others are still at the proposal stage and some still in the tendering process,” he added.
Chang was confident that most if not all of the problems related to water supply woes, especially in critical or stressed areas would be resolved once the people’s projects were fully implemented by the end of next year.
In another development, JBALB Betong divisional engineer Tay Chiaw Teck said the water supply problem in Kabong /Sesang area had been temporarily resolved.
Under a short-term intervention project, costing RM107 million, JBALB will be laying a 99km pipeline from Simpang Lebur to supply water to seven areas, namely Kampung Hilir, Kampung Hulu, Kampung Masjid, Kampung Lintang, Kampung Sungai Benang, Kampung Sungai Endot and Kampung Gerigat.
The project will benefit more than 3,000 villagers.
Previously, JBALB had to send water tankers to the affected areas on a daily basis, which was very costly, he said.
