KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 22 — A minister today expressed the hope that the successful delivery of the Mass Rapid Transit Sungai Buloh-Kajang (MRT SBK) Line will be translated into the meaningful involvement of local players in the planning, design and construction of rail-based projects.
Datuk Seri Nancy Shukri, who is a Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, said the rail network would continue to be the backbone of Malaysia’s existing and future public transport system.
“We have to consider the education aspect as well because we require much manpower specially skilled in the rail sector,” she said to reporters after officiating at a seminar on ‘Challenges in Delivering the Klang Valley MRT’, here.
Speaking at the event, Nancy expressed the government’s fervent hope that Malaysian companies related to rail projects would attain international standards, and would be capable of delivering rail transit systems by themselves without much reliance on international players.
She said to reporters that the rail network in Malaysia was growing, and cited the recently completed MRT SBK Line and the upcoming MRT Sungai Buloh-Serdang-Putrajaya Line 2, East Coast Rail Link, Light Rail Transit Line 3 and High Speed Rail project.
Nancy also spoke of the challenges of carrying out a major project in a high-density urban environment and said these should be overcome with proper planning.
She highlighted construction itself as one of the major challenges, and said it included executing work above and under busy roads, extremely close to tall buildings, and near pedestrian or road traffic.
These made construction extremely dangerous, and as such planning needed to be done very precisely as well as meticulously with no room for error, she said.
She also said that resistance from landowners closed to the rail alignment also posed a challenge.
The one-day inaugural seminar was organised by Gabungan Jurutera Perunding Bumiputera in collaboration with MRT Corporation to serve as a platform for rail industry players to acquire knowledge on how to manage challenges pertaining to the MRT line.
It was attended by more than 300 representatives of various organisations relevant to the rail industry. — Bernama
