A plan to extend the High Speed Rail (HSR) from Kaohsiung to Pingtung City going according to procedure, as the opinions of the review committee have been presented in a report being assessed by the National Development Council, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Kolas Yotaka said yesterday.
The Chinese-language United Daily News on Wednesday quoted a member of the HSR Extension Viability Assessment Committee as saying that the Ministry of Transportation and Communications had delivered the report to the Cabinet, despite the member’s objection.
The committee in late September favored a proposed route that would extend the line from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Lioukuaicuo Station in Pingtung.
Photo: Lee Hsin-fang, Taipei Times
Although the committee’s conclusions were reached by consensus, the report should not have been delivered to the Cabinet without the approval of all seven members, United Daily News cited the member as saying, adding that the assessment therefore had not followed correct procedure.
Kolas denied that there was any problem.
To the Execuitve Yuan’s knowledge, the opinions of the committee members were recorded in the report along with the meeting’s conclusions, she said.
The report is being reviewed by the council, she said, adding that the Cabinet hopes that the council would render an objective and professional evaluation.
In other news, the Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday told a weekly Cabinet meeting that water supply is sufficient to cover demand by companies that have participated in three programs to encourage investment in the nation amid an ongoing US-China trade dispute.
So far, 233 companies have joined the three programs, with 153 in the Taiwanese Companies Reinvest in Taiwan 2.0 program, which use a combined 169,000 tonnes of water daily, 20 in the Take Root in Taiwan program (8,000 tonnes) and 60 in the Small and Medium-sized Companies Investment Program (5,000 tonnes), it said.
Of the 233 firms, 137 have started operations at industrial zones and require a combined 126,000 tonnes of water daily, it said, adding that after covering their daily water use, the nation still has 1.1 million tonnes of water on tap for the needs of industrial zones.
The other 96 firms that have procured or upgraded their facilities use about 56,000 tonnes of water per day between them, which still leaves the total well within the nation’s capabilities, it said.
Even though this year has been relatively dry, with only one typhoon making landfall, the nation’s reservoirs on average are at 70 percent of capacity and there would not be a water shortage before the Lunar New Year in January, it said.
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