The Land Public Transport Commission (Spad) today denied that the realignment of the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) track at Jalan Damansara, off Jalan Duta, was purportedly to save a bungalow belonging to a VIP, as claimed by opposition lawmakers.

Explaining the realignment, Spad chief executive officer Mohd Nur Kamal said the original alignment would have sliced the piece of land into two non-connected pieces, thus burdening the government with a huge amount of compensation due to the loss of economic potential of the land.

"Spad had evaluated the alternatives and accepted the option of moving the original alignment further to the edge of the plot of land.

"The realignment was possible because, firstly, there was suitable alternative land available. However, more importantly, the process reduced the amount of land acquisition by over 1,000 sq metres, plus the new alignment causes less injury to the owner because the remaining land is left intact and economically viable," he said via email in reply to Bernama.

Mohd Nur was responding to a criticism made by DAP Member of Parliament Tony Pua that Spad practised double standards in realigning the MRT tunnel near Damansara in order to bypass property belonging to a VIP.  

Feedback was sought

He also clarified that the bungalow did not play any part in the evaluation process for the realignment because the original proposed alignment did not affect the building in the first place.

mrt alignment 051011 vip house big"Indeed, there was a cost to this realignment but it is lower than the potential compensation payout. The allegation (made by Tony Pua) was totally false and the item marked on the map as the 'VIP House' is totally incorrect," he said.

Explaining how the MRT alignment was made, Mohd Nur pointed out that the process was determined through a three-step process, which were considering the establishment of fixed points along the corridor which MRT must serve, the alignment has to connect these fixed points and, lastly, the alignment has to go through public scrutiny where it was displayed for three months to get public feedback.  

He said several changes were made to the earlier proposed alignment and station locations as a result of feedback obtained following the public display of the railway scheme between Feb 14 and May 14 this year.    

"These changes managed to significantly reduce private land acquisition and social impact on the residents in those areas and, at the same time, the other factors like optimising ridership and journey time, technical feasibility and integration were not significantly compromised," he said.    

Avoiding acquisitions

Among the changes to the original proposed alignment were at Kajang, Bukit Dukung and Kota Damansara, while station locations were changed at Taman Tun Dr Ismail and Bukit Bintang.

Highlighting a route at Kajang as an example, Mohd Nur said, it was made to avoid acquisition of many shoplots in the middle of the town, and it was possible because suitable land was available for the realigned track and station.

Meanwhile, for Bukit Dukung, he said the original proposed alignment along the old Cheras-Kajang road was rerouted to run along the Grand Saga Highway.  

"Actually, the original proposed alignment was projected to reach population centres at Kampung Bukit Dukung, Simpang Balak and Taman Mesra. However, land acquisition for this route affected a surau, part of a school building and many residential and commercial shoplots," he explained.  

And for the Bukit Bintang area, Mohd Nur explained, the two stations were merged to one at the Jalan Bukit Bintang-Jalan Sultan Ismail junction because it was the only integration point with the monorail as well as the heart of the commercial area.  

Mohd Nur said, the original proposed two locations turned out not to be suitable because of the lack of integration and the fact that they were away from the focal point of Bukit Bintang's commercial heart.

"Furthermore, the original two-station option will still result in shophouses and even highrise (buildings) being acquired and demolished," he said.