NationalOct 23. 2020Photos by Tanachai Pramarnpanich
By The Nation
Siam Paragon’s Parc Paragon has been transformed into a haven for food lovers and is offering delectable traditional creations from different corners of the country.
The “Thai O-Cha” food fest, organised in collaboration with the Department of Culture Promotion, features more than 50 restaurants from across the country and also showcases edible delights created by superstars.
The event also includes performances by musical stars like The Toys and Palmy Pancharoen.
The Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration on Friday reported eight new cases, including three foreigners, in quarantine over a 24-hour period.
The latest cases included a Thai national, aged 31, returning from the United Arab Emirates; a Thai national, 32, from Sudan; an Iranian national, 54, from Iran; a Thai, 20, and a French national, 40, from Switzerland; two Thai nationals, aged 35 and 2, from Bahrain; and a Swedish national, 60, from the UK.
The Thai returnee from Sudan was reportedly a soldier in a UN mission. The Swedish was a reactive case.
All the patients were asymptomatic, except the French national who reportedly had fever.
As of Thursday, the number of confirmed cases in Thailand increased to 3,727 (780 in state quarantine), 150 are in hospital, 3,518 have recovered and been discharged and 59 have died.
According to Worldometer, as of 9am on Friday the number of confirmed global cases had risen to 41.97 million (increasing by 477,751 over 24 hours), 31.81 million have recovered, 10.61 million are active cases (75,051 in severe condition) and 1.14 million have died (increasing by 6,464).
Thailand ranks 146th for most cases in the world.
The US has the most number, with 8.66 million, followed by India (7.75 million), Brazil (5.33 million), Russia (1.46 million) and Spain (1.09 million).
The Expressway Authority of Thailand (Exat) is finalising details of an expressway project connecting Phuket’s Kathu and Patong subdistricts and hopes to propose to Transport Minister Saksayam Chidchob within next week, Exat governor Surachet Laophulsuk said.
“The expressway will be 4km long and comprise a 1.85km- long tunnel, costing Bt14 billion,” he said.
“After the transport minister approves the details, he will propose them at the next Cabinet meeting which is scheduled for November 2-3 in Phuket. We will use this chance to invite ministers to visit the actual construction site.”
Surachet added that the expressway will run through three areas of national forest lands and a land earmarked for agricultural reform, but there should be no obstacle since Exat had already received permission from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and Agricultural Land Reform Office.
“The construction should have minimal impact on the forest lands, while we hope that the project would be approved by the Cabinet before February 2021, then the bidding for contractors should start by mid-2021,” he said. “Construction should start by mid-2022 and will take approximately four years. The expressway should be open for public use in 2026.”
Exat estimates that in the first year of operation, the expressway will have traffic flow of 60,000 vehicles per day, half of them cars and the other half motorcycles. Proposed toll fees are: Bt15 for motorcycles, Bt40 for four-wheel vehicles, Bt85 for six- to 10-wheel vehicles, and Bt125 for vehicles with more than 10 wheels.
Meanwhile, a news source from Exat revealed that the authority would seek permission from the Commission for the Management of Land Traffic to start construction of the Northern Expressway in the N2 section on Kaset – Navamin Road right away, without waiting for the N1 section to be completed, to prevent the project from being delayed.
Kasetsart University is opposing the construction of the N1 section, which runs in front of the university, whereas the bidding for N2 section can start as soon as early next year.
The Department of Fisheries aims to increase the output of giant freshwater prawns to 40,000 tonnes per year by 2022, from the current production capacity of 31,000 tonnes per year, said Meesak Phakdikhong, the department’s director-general.
The increase in production would raise the estimated value to Bt7.9 billion.
“Thailand has the capacity to become the world’s major production base for giant freshwater prawns for export, while the government would provide support in terms of technology, innovation and funding to farmers and entrepreneurs to maximise their production capacity,” he said.
Meanwhile, Chalermchai Suwanrak, director of Fresh Water Fishery Research and Development Division, has added that Department of Fisheries plans to increase sales channels for giant freshwater prawns both domestic and overseas, especially in Chinese markets that have high purchasing power and high demand for both frozen and refrigerated prawns.
“We would also create a brand of Thai giant freshwater prawns, as well as organise trade exhibitions overseas to increase brand awareness,” he added.
“Currently the department is promoting the GAP [Good Aquaculture Practice] standard among 600 prawn farms in Chachoengsao, Suphan Buri, Ratchaburi and Nakhon Pathom provinces,” said Chalermchai. “We are also developing a method to raise giant freshwater prawn in mud ponds, as well as improving a biosafety standard for prawn farmers to prevent diseases and maximise their production.”
The dead body of a man was found off Sattahip Bay west of Koh Khram in Chonburi province on Thursday.
Sattahip police were alerted at 1pm about the body found floating in the sea. Rescue staff from Sawang Rojana Thammasathan Foundation salvaged the body and brought it to a pier at Bang Sare Beach in Bang Sare subdistrict.
Police said that the deceased was a male, age and nationality unknown, wearing a green underwear with a red nylon rope tied around his waist, while the head and hands were missing due to decomposition.
Forensic staff estimated that the victim had been dead for around a month, while the cause of death could be drowning by being tied to a weight.
The body was sent to Chonburi’s forensic institute for detailed autopsy to identify the victim and the cause of death, while police are checking the missing persons’ reports to see if any matched the body’s description.
PTT Plc will compensate 100 per cent of damage suffered by victims of a gas pipe explosion in Bang Bo district of Samut Prakarn province on Thursday afternoon, the company said.
Three people were killed, 52 injured, while nine houses and 20 vehicles were damaged.
Several fire engines spent around an hour to control the blaze, which originated from PTT’s underground gas pipe and covered the area of around 1km, forcing local residents to evacuate the area immediately, including students and staff from the local Preng Wisuttha Tipbodee School. The school building was also found to be damaged, but it is still not clear if the fire was the cause.
“The company is sending a team of experts to investigate the cause and estimate the damage, while the company has an insurance with Dhipaya Insurance to cover the damage,” said Theera Phudphong, the PTT’s corporate social responsibility officer.
“Bang Bo and Bang Sao Thong district authorities will provide temporary lodging for those whose houses were damaged.”
People participation key to better public services: TDRI
NationalOct 23. 2020Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI) senior research fellow Dr Kannika Thampanishvong/Photo credit:TDRI
By The Nation
If the officialdom is the interface between the government and the populace, its archaic system urgently needs an overhaul, a senior Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI) researcher said.
Comparing the Thai bureaucracy to the human-computer interface system, TDRI senior research fellow Kannika Thampanishvong said the officialdom is the obsolete 1.0 version, unable to meet user needs, and ridden with inefficiency.
“Because the interface is out of date, the public services are difficult to access and unresponsive to people’s needs and demands,” she said. “Because the interface is obsolete, it cannot harness people’s creativity or mobilise resources from different sectors to improve system performance.”
From the top-down 1.0 interface mode, the bureaucracy must switch to the bottom-up 5.0 version to make the system responsive and user-friendly, she said.
People’s participation is the key to better public services, Kannika and TDRI senior researcher Tippatrai Saelawong stated at the 2020 TDRI annual conference on, “The Interface of Thai State and People’s Participation”.
At present, the state public participation process mostly merely aims to inform or ask for opinions about the de facto state projects, they said, adding, the participation process fails to give well-rounded and easy-to-understand information to the public and often uses highly technical jargon that ordinary citizens cannot comprehend.
“The public hearing process is often ceremonial, while some groups of people affected by the projects are excluded,” Kannika said.
If the government wants to improve public services, it must treat the citizens as equal stakeholders, allowing them to work shoulder-to-shoulder in planning, deciding, and carrying out the projects, she added.
“The government must also support the citizens to initiate projects and deliver public services themselves, switching its roles from an implementer to a facilitator.”
Some public services are adapting under this direction, she said, citing community outreach services for bed-ridden patients and other innovative projects to handle waste recycling, corruption and education reform.
According to the research by the TDRI, two decades from now, there will be nearly one million homebound or bed-ridden elders in Thailand. Preparing for the challenges ahead, local administrative organisations are teaming up with local hospitals and community health volunteers to provide outreach services to the homebound, bed-ridden elderly in their areas.
Yet these efforts are only possible in communities with strong local governments, partnership with health teams, and budgetary support, she pointed out.
Another interface innovation is the collaboration between the private sector and civil society on waste recycling.
At present, the government focuses on campaigns to raise awareness on the sorting of household plastic waste, but people don’t know what to do after that. To answer their needs, a group of businesses are working with civic groups to set up drop-off points and collect the plastic waste to recycling factories.
The project has increased the amount of plastic for recycling by 2,268 kilograms and reduced the greenhouse gas emissions by 5,262kg of carbon dioxide equivalent, she said.
The top-down education with uniform policy unresponsive to local concerns is also a grave problem facing the country, said TDRI senior researcher Tippatrai Saelawong.
Due to centralisation, local schools have no say in school management and design of curriculum. Insufficient state funding also makes them lag behind city schools while local groups have not yet got organised to address the problem, Tippatrai said.
To overcome the obstacles, the Education Sandbox has been established. It allows some schools to design their curriculum to answer local needs and work with civic groups on teacher training, teaching media development, and quality assessment. Meanwhile, the local governments are coordinating with central education authorities to give these schools legal breathing room to experiment with their innovations, Tippatrai said.
Another noteworthy innovation against corruption is the Integrity Pact (IP) project by the Anti-Corruption Organisation of Thailand (ACT), he said.
Aiming to make government procurement transparent, ACT sends volunteer senior engineers to monitor the government’s mega-construction projects with permission from concerned state agencies for ACT to observe and audit government procurement processes. The Comptroller-General’s Department, meanwhile, acts as their coordinator and project funder, he said.
According to TDRI’s calculation, IP helped the government save at least Bt51 billion, or 14 per cent of the total budget of 62 mega-projects during the past five years.
“These efforts show that upgrading the interface of the bureaucracy is possible, that people’s participation can significantly improve the quality of public services,” he said.
To scale up these policy innovations effectively, the government needs to unlock the rigid rules and regulations that prevent change, said Tippatrai. The government must also be the facilitator providing change-makers with financial and infrastructural support and useful data.
“Importantly, the officials must not hijack the innovative projects initiated by the private sector and civic groups and claim them as their own work because it would undermine trust,” he said. “Instead they should see civic groups as equal partners for input and innovations.”
An efficient interface addresses people’s problems, Kannika said. The system must also be dynamic, responsive to new demands, open to public input and innovations for more efficiency, she added.
“The government must understand people’s needs to design and deliver better public services. The government must then listen to the people,” Kannika said.
The Thailand Meteorological Department forecast on Friday that a high pressure area covers the upper North and the Northeast, bringing less rain to upper Thailand and lowering temperatures by 1-2 degrees Celsius. Strong winds are likely in the Northeast, the North and the Central regions.
Meanwhile, the monsoon trough lies across the middle South and the moderate southwest monsoon prevails across the Andaman Sea, the South and the Gulf of Thailand. Isolated heavy rains are likely in the South.
The department said the category 5 typhoon “Saudel” over the middle South China Sea is expected to make landfall over the coast of upper Vietnam on October 25-26 before declining rapidly. Isolated rain with strong winds are likely over the eastern and the lower portion of the Northeast during the period.
The weather forecast for the next 24 hours:
North: Cool weather with strong wind and thundershowers in 10 per cent of the areas; minimum temperature 20-23°C, maximum 30-32°C.
Northeast: Cool weather with strong winds and thundershowers in 10 per cent of the areas; minimum temperature 16-21°C, maximum 29-31°C.
Central: Mostly cloudy with thundershowers in 10 per cent of the areas; minimum temperature 22-24°C, maximum 31-34°C.
East: Mostly cloudy with thundershowers in 10 per cent of the areas; minimum temperature 23-24°C, maximum 32-34°C; waves 1-2 metres high and over two metres during thundershowers.
South (east coast): Mostly cloudy with thundershowers in 60 per cent of the areas and isolated heavy rain; minimum temperature 23-24°C, maximum 32-33°C; waves a metre high and two metres during thundershowers.
South (west coast): Mostly cloudy with thundershowers in 60 per cent of the areas and isolated heavy rain; minimum temperature 23-26°C, maximum 31-33°C; waves 1-2 metres high and two metres during thundershowers.
Bangkok and surrounding areas: Mostly cloudy with thundershowers in 10 per cent of the areas; minimum temperature 24-25°C, maximum 32-33°C.
The Transport Ministry will next month seek Cabinet approval to extend the MRT Pink Line monorail with a two-station link to Muang Thong Thani, Nonthaburi province.
The planned 3-kilometre extension from Si Rat station to Muang Thong Thani has passed an environmental impact assessment (EIA) and will be sent to Cabinet in November, said the Mass Rapid Transit Authority (MRTA).
The Pink Line will run 34.5 kilometres from Nonthaburi’s Khae Rai Intersection to Minburi district in Bangkok.
The contractor, BTS-led consortium BRS, says work on the line is 60 per cent complete, with stations scheduled to open at the end of 2021.
The spur-extension to Muang Thong Thani is expected to open in 2020.
Water overflowing from Nakhon Ratchasima’s Lam Ta Khong Dam has flooded villages downstream to a level of 50-60 centimetres.
About 500 households have been hit by the flooding, with 20 now uninhabitable. Residents have been warned to evacuate to higher ground while soldiers are building sandbag walls to defend lowland villages in the area.
Authorities say water levels in the dam are now stabilising and should begin to drop if the region sees no more heavy rain.
Wissanu Bu-sra, 45, said that seven or eight houses in his village close to the dam had been submerged since Wednesday, with residents forced to move their belongings and livestock to higher ground.
He added that locals were experiencing severe suffering, since local government agencies had failed to solve the seasonal problem, only delivering aid packages and then leaving.
Photos by Tanachai Pramarnpanich 
(Representational Image) 
Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI) senior research fellow Dr Kannika Thampanishvong/Photo credit:TDRI 
