BY PRIYA MENON

THE Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the Sungai Besi-Ulu Kelang Expressway (SUKE) that was said to have had expired was in fact extended for another two years, much to the residents’ surprise.

The Say No To SUKE (SNTS) committee only discovered this five minutes before a scheduled meeting on the matter with the Selangor state government at the state secretariat Tuesday evening.

Its committee chairman Muhammad Agos Abul Hasan Ashari said an officer from the Selangor Department of Environment (DOE) had explained to them to clear the matter.

“When we broached the subject in the meeting, the DOE director said it was a mix-up on their part and that the EIA was indeed extended until March 20, 2017,” he added.

The DOE had earlier sent the group a letter dated Dec 31, 2015 saying that there had been no application for extension from the project developer Prolintas.

However, the residents are questioning the decision because the EIA report was based on a study conducted in 2011 and should be outdated.

The committee was also disappointed that there was no conclusion from the meeting they attended despite forwarding all the necessary documents for a decision to be made.

The meeting was attended by State Infrastructure and Public Facilities committee chairman Zaidy Abdul Talib who represented Selangor Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Azmin Ali.

They also submitted a white paper with all their concerns about the highway.

The group had made three demands from the state to furnish the minutes of the meeting within three days, give an explanation on why the Ampang LRT Plan was scrapped to make way for the SUKE and finally, the reasons for not using public transportation such as the Bus Rapid Transit, LRT and MRT in place of SUKE.

They also requested for another meeting on Feb 3 but the state did not commit to the request.

Zaidy confirmed the mistake on the DOE’s part but said the meeting was fruitful.

“We were able to clear up some of the wrong information they had obtained and published,” he said.

He said it was not possible to publish the minutes of the meeting in three working days.

“We are a government agency and have our limitations. As for the explanation on the Ampang LRT plan and the implementation of public transportation, we can discuss it in the next meeting,” he added.

SUKE is a 24.4km, three-lane, dual carriageway, elevated expressway which starts from Sri Petaling, passing through Sungai Besi, Alam Damai, Cheras-Kajang, Taman Bukit Permai, Taman Putra, Taman Permai Jaya, Taman Dagang Permai, Taman Kosas, Ampang and Taman Hillview before exiting at Ulu Kelang.