Govt yet to approve licence for sand export to India: Wan Junaidi

SUNGAI BULOH: The government has yet to grant approval for any company in the country to export sand to India, said Natural Resources and Environment Minister Datuk Seri Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar.
"Any country can say they are going to import sand from Malaysia, as far as I know we are not going to export sand to India. Despite the sand export ban being lifted in 2015, the government has yet to approve any exports," he told reporters after conducting a working visit to Kwasa Damansara MRT station, here, today.
His response came after an Indian daily reported on Tuesday that a Malaysian company has been shortlisted for the export of sand to India.
The report further stated that the exported sand would be available in Bengaluru in the Indian southern state of Karnataka at Rs175 (RM11.75) for a 50-kilogramme bag.
The government had imposed a ban on sand exports in 1997, but instances of sand smuggling had been widely reported since 2008.
Meanwhile, Wan Junaidi said the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry said the completion of the now-operational MRT Sungai Buloh-Kajang route is expected to reduce the number of vehicles on the roads especially from Sungai Buloh to Kuala Lumpur and from Kajang to Kuala Lumpur.
"The ministry through its Department of Environment will continue to monitor the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) reports on the new MRT route.
"Among the things that are being monitored include the noise pollution levels, the ambient air quality, river water quality for suspended solids and the water quality from trapped water pools for suspended solids and turbidity," he said.
Wan Junaidi said statistics by the Works Ministry revealed that the average daily traffic from Kuala Lumpur to Kajang is 48,737 vehicles in 2015.
"If we are able to reduce that by 10% which equals 4,874 vehicles for example, the government will be able to reduce 1.78 million vehicles from travelling on that route.
"The MRT operations therefore would clearly reduce fossil fuel usage and contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gases (GHG) by 34,400 tonnes a year," he said, adding that this would help Malaysia to achieve its target set under the National Determined Contribution (NDC) presented by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) under the Paris Agreement.