KUALA LUMPUR: Residents of People’s Housing Projects (PPRs) may soon have a novel way of making money to settle their monthly house payments – by catching rats in their area.
The idea was mooted by Deputy Federal Territories Minister Datuk Dr Shahruddin Md Salleh as a way of encouraging residents to rid their communities of vermin, while helping keep their living areas clean.
“(Providing a reward in the form of) a rebate for residents to pay their monthly house payments (is interesting). However, this is (only) my opinion.
“I will have a meeting with City Hall (DBKL) about the idea, as well to discuss other effective techniques for such a programme,” he said at the Gotong-Royong Mega programme in conjunction with World Clean-up Day 2018 at the Seri Semarak PPR here, today.
Also present at the programme was Federal Territories secretary-general Datuk Seri Adnan Md Ikhsan.
Shahruddin said that the rebate programme may encourage more residents to ensure that their living spaces are clean and pest-free, compared to a previous programme which offered RM3 to residents for every rat caught in their housing area.
“Between January and August this year, 2,700 rats were caught through the ‘1 tikus, 3 ringgit’ campaign organised by DBKL.
“In 2017, 16,000 rats were caught under the programme – an increase of 3,000 rats compared to 2016,” he added.
A ‘1 tikus, 1 ringgit’ programme was launched by City Hall in 2008, but the reward was tripled in 2015.
Shahruddin said that almost 78,000 rats were caught in the city since 2012 through the same campaign, with rewards given totalling RM170,000.
“Imagine if (each PPR) resident had caught one rat since 2012. The reward would almost be RM170,000. (That would be enough to) buy four PPR units!” he added.