Unimas tasked with finding how water grid can be explored

KOTA SAMARAHAN: Utilities Minister Dato Sri Dr Stephen Rundi Utom has requested Universiti Malaysia Sarawak ( Unimas) to look into how the water grid can be explored in Sarawak.

Dr Rundi said based on the initial brainstorming conducted by his ministry two months ago, the water grid, if implemented, will cost the government a ‘bomb’.

“The extension of piping and so on, will cost us RM55 billion. This will be additional cost for the government. So we want to see how to do this cheaper way and try to put this into stages and so on,” he said when officiating the launch of Green Tech Talk and ‘low carbon campus’ at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak ( Unimas) here yesterday.

Despite the high cost, water grid is necessary to solve the water supply problem in the state, particularly in rural areas.

“We have rainfalls yet we still have people complaining there is no water to drink, especially those in rural areas. They are depending on gravity feed. Gravity feed today is no longer as safe as before due to increasing pollution by big plantations, timber logging and so on.

“Therefore, we have to treat this water. We have come up with a few initiatives like trying to have a so- cal led stand- alone plant in the rural areas by using membrane fi ltration and so on. In the city, it is not an issue because we have water boards looking at all this.”

Dr Rundi said what is more important is to fi nd ways to make people realise the importance of water in their lives.

“In fact, we have very high nonrevenue water ( NRW). People at large do not really appreciate water for the reason that it is very cheap. When things are cheap, people don’t appreciate. But when we put a tariff, people will jump up.

“But we need to find ways to make people realise how important water is for us. In the future, probably people will fight a war over water. In Sarawak, we are thankful to God because we are given many rivers, rainfall and so on. That is the reason we can have hydropower.”

On another note, Dr Rundi said Unimas has to be at the forefront of almost every research the state wants to do.

“Our Chief Minister ( Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg) is trying to leapfrog Sarawak’s progress into the digital economy. He is looking at hydrogen as a source of power. Maybe in the future, we will have cars running on hydrogen. These are the things we are looking at besides LRT ( light railway transit).

For this purpose, he said Abang Johari would be visiting Estonia next week to study how the country develop its digital economy.

“Estonia is a small nation but they have developed so well through digital economy and so on. This is something we want to emulate.”