|
GEORGE TOWN: The Drainage and Irrigation Department needs RM21 billion for flood mitigation projects nationwide to put a stop to the perennial problem of flooding.
A recent survey by the department showed that once all the flood mitigation projects have been put in place, the country is expected to be free from floods in future.
DID director-general Datuk Keizrul Abdullah, however, said that all these (the implementation of the flood mitigation projects) would take some time.
"RM21 billion is an extremely huge figure... the government has many other responsibilities. As such, we have to implement the flood mitigation projects in phases and according to our priority list," he told reporters after the launching of the Batu Ferringhi beach rehabilitation project at the beach front of the Bayview Beach Resort here today.
He cited, for example, the SMART (Stormwater Management and Road Tunnel) in Kuala Lumpur, saying that it had managed to avert two floods following its opening in the middle of this year.
The uniqueness of the SMART motorway comes from its Automated Flood Control Gates on either end of the motorway tunnel which converts the system into a flood tunnel to divert flood water from its holding basin and storage reservoir into the Sungai Kerayong and back into Sungai Klang.
Keizrul said they were currently focusing on widening and deepening some of Johor's rivers.
 |
Is this article useful to you?
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 
