ALOR STAR, March 19 — Kedah has had its share of grand “vision” plans, thought up by a succession of ambitious mentris besar, to turn its modest economy into a regional powerhouse to rival Penang’s.
Those plans and the politicians who dreamed them up are gone and forgotten. However, the promises of those plans, of providing better jobs and a better standard of living, still light up the eyes of most Kedahans.
This time, there is no grand plan but a massive fuel processing and refinery project in Yan district that could transform the landscape and lives of tens of thousands of people in one of the state’s major rice-growing areas.
Part of the project involves building a two-train refinery that will sit on a 340 ha plot of reclaimed land on the coast near Sungai Limau, a tiny town surrounded by huge swaths of verdant padi fields. It is being called the Sungai Limau Hydrocarbon Hub (Sulih).
The other part, which is currently on hold, is building a 300km oil pipeline that will snake through Kedah, northern Perak over the Titiwangsa main range to Bachok, Kelantan. It could potentially bring in RM200 million a year for the Kedah government and create up to 3,000 new jobs.
It is not just the scale of the project that has people excited and some worried. Once completed, the refinery would turn what is now a rice bowl area, into a heavy industrial zone. The residents of Sungai Limau, especially those who will live in the shadow of the refinery, are now contemplating the hard adjustments that they will have to make. They will have to make the transition from their now sedate kampung existence to the hurly-burly of city life.
More importantly, they are worried that they will not see a sen from the millions in spin-off revenue from the food outlets, shops and smaller industries that will mushroom around Yan.
*p/s This much needed investors are greatly excites most Kedahan and shall be helping locals improving their economy and state coffers.
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