Confirmation of the budget request to be filed came at a meeting of the Phuket Provincial Water Resources Subcommittee chaired by Phuket Governor Sophon Suwannarat at Phuket Provincial Hall yesterday (Oct 31).
At the meeting it was recognised that the current El Niño phase of global weather is expected to affect Phuket through next year, said an official report of the meeting.
As of yesterday, the island’s three main reservoirs contained 19.7 million cubic metres of water, accounting for 91.5% of the total capacity of 21.53mn cubic metres of all three reservoirs combined, said the report.
The water will be needed for the dry season, especially from December through May to meet the needs of local residents and tourists, the official report noted.
The Phuket branch of the Provincial Waterworks Authority (PWA) explained it was continuing with its usual strategies to bolster water supply, yesterday listed as:
- Pumping raw water from public water sources
- Buying raw water from private mines (old water wells)
- Buying raw water from private mines (new water wells)
- increasing the rate of private water purchases
- placing Water pipelines connect the water distribution areas to 3 main stations.
The sixth strategy announced yesterday was the project “to improve and expand the Provincial Waterworks Authority, Phang Nga - Phuket branch”.
The total budget to be requested was given as B4,673,970, “with the objective of increasing water production capacity”.
The exact budget to be requested for the Phang Nga - Phuket pipeline was not specifically given. The B4.6bn budget is to be requested this fiscal year (FY 2024 - Oct 1, 2023 - Sept 30, 2024), the official report noted.
Governor Sophon yesterday instructed all government agencies to give importance to water management, and to provide enough water to meet the needs of residents and tourists.
Solving short-term water shortage problems by pumping raw water from public water sources and buying raw water from private mines, and son, must be done immediately, he said.
As a “medium-term solution”, the budget for the Phang Nga - Phuket pipeline must be submitted this fiscal year (FY 2024) as “government subsidy type” form of funding.
“When the budget is allocated, it can be implemented immediately,” he said.
Officials were instructed to also look into having a raw water pipeline from Ratchaprapha Dam in Surat Thani help supply water to Phuket as a long-term solution to Phuket’s water supply woes.
“The results of the completed studies were taken into consideration to determine the guidelines for driving the project forward. This was presented to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior to support the project,” Governor Sophon said.
Looking forward to Fiscal Year 2025, the subcommittee yesterday resolved to approve 69 projects requiring budget funds B1.218bn.
Twenty-one projects requiring B460.89mn were not approved “because they were “projects that are not ready for operation and not in line with the 20-year water resources management master plan”.
PIPELINE REVIVAL
The Cabinet in 2019 approved a budget of B3.5 billion for officials to go ahead with the Phang Nga - Phuket pipeline.
However, the project, already fully planned and ready to roll out, soon stalled and became mired in bureaucracy. Then the tourism shutdown policies were brought into effect in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, effectively putting all major infrastructure projects on hold.
Among his first acts as Governor of Phuket, Narong Woonciew in July 2020 travelled to Bangkok to raise the issue with headlining officials in the capital, to no avail.
Of note, Sarawut Chevaprasert, Deputy Secretary-General of the Office of National Water Resources (ONWR) was in Phuket in September to officiate the launch of three projects that will expand the total capacity at Phuket’s three main reservoirs by a total of 850,000 cubic metres of water. Yet the Phang Nga pipeline was not mentioned among the water supply projects to go ahead.
TOURISM PRESSURE
The move to finally revive the Phang Nga pipeline project comes amid a push to increase the number of tourists coming to Thailand, and specifically to Phuket.
According to Ministry of Tourism & Sports statistics, Phuket welcomed 10,167,165 foreign tourists in 2019, staying on average 4.01 days. During that year, Phuket’s water reserves ran dangerously low.
Even without the usual number of tourists on the island due to the COVID-19 pandemic, by April 2020 the water level at the Bang Wad reservoir in Kathu – the island’s main reservoir with a capacity of 10.6mn cubic metres of water – sank so low that an old shrine not seen since the drought of 2002-3 became visible again. At that time, on Apr 18, Mr Graisorn confirmed the reservoir contains just 80,000 cubic metres of water.
However, tourism officials are again hoping to see Phuket welcome 10mn foreign tourists during the coming year.
“From Sept 2022 through Sept 2023, there were 86,741 domestic and international flights and 13,606,638 passengers during the high season of Phuket,” Monchai Tanode, General Manager of Phuket International Airport said recently in marking Phuket airport’s “35th Anniversary”.
“The number of flights and passengers between October and December 2023 is forecast to see 26,000 flights and more than 4.1 million passengers,” he added.
The visa-exemption measures for Chinese and Kazakhstani nationals will be the main driver for tourist arrivals during the upcoming months, Mr Monchai noted.
The visa-exemption measures for tourists from China and Kazakhstan came into effect on Sept 25 and will conclude on Feb 29, 2024. The government’s plan aims to attract 2.9 million Chinese arrivals and generate B140 billion in tourism revenue over the five months in a move seen as a critical step in shoring up the nation’s economic recovery.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin yesterday (Oct 31) announced that tourists from India and Taiwan will be able to enter Thailand without a visa between Nov 10 and May 10 next year in a bid to draw in more tourists as high season approaches.
The extension of the visa-free stay for Russian tourists from 30 days to 90 days, also in an effort to boost tourism to Thailand, comes into effect today (Nov 1).