Government building more reservoirs - Tuan Ibrahim

The government is implementing the Off-River Storage project, known as Takungan Air Pinggiran Sungai (TAPS), in four states in an effort to increase the number of reservoirs in the country, the Dewan Rakyat was told today.

Minister of Environment and Water Datuk Seri Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man said the projects were in various stages of construction in Melaka, Kedah, Johor and Negeri Sembilan.

“For Melaka, RM350 million has been allocated for the first (project), TAPS Melaka, and RM200 million for the second, TAPS Jernih.

"For Langkawi (Kedah), it is in Padang Mat Sirat where RM550 million has been allocated; for Sungai Johor, we provide an allocation of RM407 million and it is expected to be completed by 2025,” he said during the oral question-and-answer session.

He said apart from that, TAPS Linggi in Negeri Sembilan was under construction and expected to be completed by 2025 with a total allocation of RM400 million.

He was replying to a supplementary question from Datuk Seri Ahmad Maslan (BN-Pontian), who wanted to know the government's efforts in building downstream reservoirs in areas facing pollution caused by drought.

Replying to a supplementary question by Datuk Dr Xavier Jayakumar (PH-Kuala Langat) on whether the government had plans to use groundwater as one of the country's water resources, especially in Langkawi, Tuan Ibrahim said the government was in the midst of conducting a detailed study on the matter.

He said to make way for the study, the construction of TAPS project in Padang Mat Sirat had been postponed.

"The study will look at the possibility of upgrading the bunded storage in Padang Saga, Langkawi, Kedah. The government has allocated RM1 million for this study, which will be implemented for 15 months starting March 20, 2020 and is expected to be completed on March 19, 2021 with a concept design,” he said.

The study was to examine the possibility of upgrading the existing bunded storage as well as the construction of a 50 million cubic meters groundwater storage downstream of Sungai Melaka, he added.

-- BERNAMA