KUCHING, Feb 7 — The Sarawak government has no plans to raise the price of clean, treated water supplied to its rural areas although the production cost has gone up, said its Utility and Telecommunication Minister, Datuk Julaihi Narawi.

According to him, the clean water production cost recorded by the Sarawak Rural Water Supply Department (JBALB) Sarawak rose from RM1.28 per cubic metre in 2020 to RM1.58 in 2021 but the consumers were charged only 44 sen per cubic metre used.

“The rest is subsidised by the state government. Not only that, as the Sarawak government through the Bantuan Khas SayangKu Sarawak (BKSS) package also provides a discount (on the consumers’ water bills.

“The Sarawak government is sensitive to the need for clean, treated water supply to reach the consumers but at a reasonable price.”

Julaihi said this at a news conference after making a working visit to the JBALB Sarawak headquarters here today, where he also said that on average, the Sarawak government gave a subsidy of RM150 million per year or RM400,000 per day to maintain the clean water supply tariff for the rural consumers.

Julaihi also said that among the new challenges in supplying clean water to the people in the state was the lack of manpower to complete the water supply projects as scheduled.

“However, in the southern region (of Sarawak), work at the project sites was ongoing despite the contractors facing a shortage of workers.

“These include the water supply projects in Asajaya, Sadong Jaya, Simunjan and Sebuyau which are still ongoing or almost completed,” he added.

The Sarawak government has allocated RM4 billion to implement 328 water supply projects for the people across Sarawak and so far, 187 of these projects worth RM625 million have been completed.

Source: BERNAMA News Agency