SHAH ALAM, 5 May: The State Government is still waiting for approval from the Ministry of Defense to allow the use of the Royal Rainmaker Technology method from Thailand, which is considered to be the best in the world, to carry out cloud seeding.

The Executive Councillor for Youth and Sports, Infrastructure and Public Utilities, Dr Yunus Hairi, said that they have sent a letter to the ministry and have not received a response so far.

He said that the approval for the implementation of the method is important because the Ejectable Flare Rack method is said to involve national security.

“Apart from natural rainfall, which is forecast to occur until the end of May, the State Government will also implement cloud seeding using that method. We have brought pilots from Thailand and carried out a trial on 3 and 4 May.

“We decided to use this method during the rainy season to encourage more rainfall to overcome the drought, which is expected to occur in June or July,” he said during a press conference at the SUK Building today.

Yunus said that the method will also be performed to overcome the issue of rainfall not coming down at the dam area.

At the same time, he informed that until today, the Sungai Selangor dam has increased to 40.86 percent compared to 38.90 percent in mid-April.

“But the amount we release is a minimum of 1.2 MLD and sometimes the Sungai Selangor water surplus reached 1,000 MLD,” he said.

In addition to that, Yunus also stressed the decision to stop water rationing starting from May 1 by the State Government was after taking into consideration prior research and planning.

He said that the plan also includes the use of pool water pumped into Sungai Selangor to increase the water level of the river.

“This move can reduce the water release from dams, resulting in a more controlled situation and the period for the dam to reach a critical level can be extended,” he said.