Tan Sri Mohd Sidek Hassan

Dato’ Zoal Azha YusofThe mega flood-bypass project, which has won various awards, isa unique piece of engineering built to ensure Kuala Lumpur isflood-free. The rapid pace of development in the last two decades hastransformed Kuala Lumpur into a metropolitan city.It has also stressed its drainage system, which has to cope with the ever-increasingflood discharges during major storms.Consequently, the people of Kuala Lumpur have been riddled with increasingfrequencies of flood occurrences since the mid-1990s. Between 2000 and 2007, thecity was hit by six major floods. Besides huge economic losses, the image of KualaLumpur as the up-and-rising modern capitalcity in Asia was somewhat affected.There were torrents of complaints andanguish from the people, no doubt.The agencies were highly criticised for theplanning, or lack of it.The Department of Irrigation and Drainage(DID), which is under the Natural Resourcesand Environment Ministry, after someindepth research and study, put in placea comprehensive Kuala Lumpur FloodMitigation Project (KLFMP) in 2003 toaddress the flood issue.The KLFMP essentiallycomprised two projects,namely the StormwaterManagement and RoadTunnel (SMART), whichis a flood-bypass tunnel,and the Batu-Jinjang flooddetention ponds.The KLFMP essentially comprisedtwo projects, namely the StormwaterManagement and Road Tunnel (SMART), which is a flood-bypass tunnel, and theBatu-Jinjang flood detention ponds.These projects were supported by a few other subsidiary projects, all aimed atimproving the flood-carrying capacity of Klang River tributaries. The primaryfunction of SMART is to mitigate floods at the heart of Kuala Lumpur.We had to identify the hotspots that caused the city to come to a halt, which areat and around the vicinity of the Masjid Jamek LRT stations as this is where theoverflow of Klang River frequently occurs.The other is at the Batu-Jinjang Ponds which would effectively handle the overflowat and around the Putra World Trade Centre areas due to over spilling of the Batuand Gombak rivers. The secondary function was to solve the much loathed problemof the city- the traffic congestions.61