BATU Arang will soon be a heritage town.
Selangor Mentri Besar Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim said Batu Arang town would be given the status to increase the economic prospects of the people in the area and make it a tourist attraction in Selangor.
He said the state Tourism Department must be ready to upgrade and develop the town while conducting research and studies of the area because of the town’s rich history.
Celebrated: Khalid (third right) looking at the poster of the carnival together with Liu (in light blue shirt) at the launch of the 100th year Batu Arang town carnival. “Besides promoting tourism, I feel that the state Tourism Department can make Batu Arang a site for educating students and organised school visits,” said Khalid who launched a carnival celebrating Batu Arang’s centenary together with state local government committee chairman Ronnie Liu at the town recently.
On Sept 10, StarMetro highlighted the history of Batu Arang in the story “The Legacy Remains”.
Residents wanting the 100-year-old town to be given heritage status were glad to hear Khalid’s statement.
According to Batu Arang Village Development and Security Committee secretary Ahmad Rafie Yob, Batu Arang certainly needs a lift from the Government in view of the huge develop- ments taking place in neighbouring towns such as Kuang, Kota Puteri and Rawang.
“Batu Arang was once called Mini Gold Hill. It can be developed into a tourist attraction and even have a tram service like the one in Penang,” said Ahmad Rafie.
“The century-old town was declared to have commercial value due to its extraction of coal in 1911, But there is a need to preserve the town and its old buildings to boost its appeal among tourists,” he added.
Old pictures of what the town used to look like when coal was mined here are being displayed at the carnival.
Coal was first found in Batu Arang in the early 1900s and a study in 1910 revealed that mining was commercially viable.
In June 1913, a British coal miner, John Archibald Russell, formed the Malayan Collieries Ltd to start mining operations in Batu Arang.
In the 1930s, only the Batu Arang mine was still operational and offered jobs to residents.
Due to the high demand for coal at the time, mining activities operated around the clock and employed 5,000 in three shifts.
In those early years, Batu Arang became the most developed towns in Selangor and that was when it became known to local residents as Mini Gold Hill.
The mining operations ended in 1960.
About 15 million tonnes of coal were mined over 47 years, generating RM163mil in the 1960s.
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