PUTRAJAYA – The National Water Services Commission (SPAN) will ensure that water supply operators replace problematic pipes as scheduled to prevent incidents of leaking or burst pipes causing water supply disruptions.
SPAN said it is closely monitoring the plans of all water supply operators for approved pipe replacement projects in each state, including Selangor.
This follows the water supply disruption in 58 areas around Shah Alam, Klang and Petaling due to a problem with the main pipe belonging to Pengurusan Air Selangor Sdn Bhd (Air Selangor) yesterday.
SPAN said it had approved the business plan submitted by Air Selangor in November, which also listed a pipe replacement programme amounting to more than RM500 million to be implemented by Air Selangor and Pengurusan Aset Air Berhad.
“The planned pipe replacement programme will be implemented over three years from 2020 to 2022 in stages involving the replacement of about 150km of distribution pipelines per year and 4,260 connecting pipes,” it said.
The commission said the total length of asbestos cement pipes still in use in distribution systems in Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya was around 6,205km or 21.4% of the total length of the distribution pipelines of 29,044km.
“The pipe replacement programme, for pipes that have reached their maximum service life, is done on a regular basis by all water supply operators.
“These pipes are at great risk of leakage or bursting, which can both cause water supply disruptions and contribute to the high rate of non-revenue water,” it said.
SPAN said replacing pipes would take time and would be carried out in stages to avoid large-scale supply disruptions.
It also said the government is targeting to achieve 25% NRW by 2030.
Based on current records, the national NRW up to the second quarter of 2020 was 36.9% with an estimated loss due to NRW of around RM2 billion a year.
SPAN asked the public to use water prudently and report cases of suspected water supply theft and possible contamination of water resources to the SPAN enforcement division at +603-83179333 or [email protected]. – Bernama, December 30, 2020
