RM20mil allocated to channel water from Sg Bunus into Lake Titiwangsa

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THE Federal Territory Drainage and Irrigation Department (DID) has allocated RM20mil to divert the flow of water from Sungai Bunus into Lake Titiwangsa, said Kuala Lumpur mayor Tan Sri Ahmad Fuad Ismail.

Fuad, who was speaking at the Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) Budget 2012 said the tender by DID was to help alleviate the recent flooding along Jalan Tun Razak, which was caused by the heavy downpour.

“There will be floods every day if we didn’t have the retention ponds and SMART Tunnel,’’ Fuad said, adding that DBKL had completed eight out of nine flood mitigation projects in Sungai Besi, Intan Baiduri, Royal Selangor Club, Kampung Bohol, Kampung Baru, Pasar Borong, Kampung Kasipillay and Kampung Pandan. The project in Universiti Malaya is on-going.

“We will have to see the volume of rain water which has increased from 20% to 40%,” he said, adding the flood mitigation works for city was divided between Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) and DID.

At a crawl: Traffic congestion in Jalan Tun Razak during a recent flooding.

DBKL is allocating RM84.1mil for drainage and river maintenance, whereby RM4.25mil is a special allocation for flood mitigation projects.

“It has been a great challenge for us to curb this problem that has resulted in property damages,” he said.

Meanwhile, a new bridge will be built by DBKL from Dang Wangi towards Bank Negara at the cost of RM39mil under the Budget 2012.

Paperworks are being finalised before the tender is released. The work is expected to start early next year.

According to Fuad, road works include maintenance, continuous jobs and upgrading of infrastructures with resurfacing covering the bulk of the scope.

“A total of RM263.89mil has been allocated to build and upgrade roads, which involves 26 projects. Out of this 18 projects are under DBKL while the remaining comes under the 10th Malaysia Plan.

“For 2012, DBKL is allocating RM96.75mil to smoothen and resurface 33 roads including 118.71km of main roads, public roads, residential roads and backlanes. We have appointed 22 contractors via tenders in November for immediate and emergency works.

“We are aware that people are not happy with the condition of the roads in the city, we have to take care of 4,000km of roads and most are dual carriageways,” he said.

During the budget, Fuad also revealed that RM196.1mil has been allocated for cleanliness — RM125.05mil allocated for Alam Flora Sdn Bhd, RM7.35mil for cleaning up pedestrian walkways and RM63mil for garbage relocation programme at Taman Beringin and Bukit Tagar Sanitary Landfills.

It is estimated 2,500 metric tonnes of domestic and bulk waste are handled by DBKL every day.

“People need to understand that maintaining cleanliness is costly. If only everyone reduces, reuses and recycles, we can lessen the damage on environment and reduce the money spent here.

“It is better if the things we can recycle is passed on or made into something else rather than ending up in the landfills,” he said.