Datuk Amar Awang Tengah
SERIAN: About 95 per cent of the rural population will get to enjoy 24-hour electricity supply by end of next year.
Minister of Public Utilities Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hassan said the supply would either be through the grid, solar system or mini-hydro as not all villages or longhouses can be connected through the grid system.
Awang Tengah told reporters yesterday that RM1.7 billion had been allocated to the state for the Rural Electrification Scheme (RES) under the National Key Result Area (NKRA), which was supposed to be completed by end of this year.
However, he explained that the target could not be achieved due to various reasons, among them the scattered villages and longhouses in the state, which posed a great challenge.
“Initially our actual target is end of this year under the NKRA, but could not be achieved due to various problems … and possibly by end of 2013, about 95 per cent of the rural population will enjoy 24-hour electricity supply,” he said after launching RES for Kpg Tarat Sibala, Tarat Mawang, Tarat Melawi, Mawang and Bunga, at Kampung Tarat Sibala Community Hall near here.
The project that cost RM2.9 million benefited 136 families from the five villages.
According to Awang Tengah, more than 70 per cent of the rural population are enjoying electricity supply at the moment.
The Second Minister of Resources and Environment also assured that villages which are yet to be linked by proper roads will get to have the electricity supply connected to them in phases.
This, he explained, would be carried out by erecting distribution posts along the river banks.
He said he has directed the contractor to explore such possibility and jointly conduct a study with Sarawak Electricity Supply Corporation (Sesco).
According to him, such practice was already carried out in Daro and in Ulu Limbang, which have no road access.