Why Malaysia built Putrajaya

A crowded capital

Perbadanan Putrajaya, the corporation that runs the city, traces the idea back to the mid-1980s, when Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad saw the need for a new Federal Government Administrative Centre outside Kuala Lumpur.^[3] Its history describes a capital under strain after decades of fast growth: ageing infrastructure, constant traffic jams, too little land for new building and overstretched public services. The state land left in Kuala Lumpur was scarce and too broken up, and buying large plots from private owners was judged far too expensive.^[3]

Consultants hired by the Economic Planning Unit in early 1992 studied six possible sites: Rawang, North Port Dickson, Janda Baik/Bukit Tinggi, Kenaboi, the Sepang coast and Prang Besar. On 2 June 1993 the Cabinet chose Prang Besar, in Selangor, about 25 km from Kuala Lumpur and 20 km from the new Kuala Lumpur International Airport. What decided it was that land, building and infrastructure there cost less than at the other five sites.^[3] A former official who worked on the survey told Bernama in 2020 that he had visited five sites in 1990, and that land at Prang Besar then cost only RM3 a square foot.^[6]

Prang Besar, “Great War” in Malay, had been a rubber estate given to British veterans of the First World War.^[3] The new city was also meant to sit inside the Multimedia Super Corridor, a 15 km by 50 km zone with high-speed telecommunications running south from the Petronas Twin Towers, together with the airport and the new technology town of Cyberjaya.^[3]

From estate to city

In June and December 1993 the government gazetted land at the site under the Land Acquisition Act 1960. The Cabinet approved a master plan based on the garden city idea on 15 February 1994, and on 12 October 1994 it agreed to rename Prang Besar as Putrajaya, in honour of Malaysia’s first prime minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj.^[3]

On 20 July 1995 the federal government and Selangor signed an agreement giving the federal government the right to run and manage Putrajaya, including its land. Work on the city formally began on 29 August 1995. Perbadanan Putrajaya was set up on 1 March 1996 as the local authority, planner and land administrator, and on the same day Putrajaya became a district separate from Sepang, still inside Selangor.^[3] People living on the Prang Besar, Sedgelley, Galloway and Madingley estates were moved to new housing and compensated.^[3]

There were only a few knee-deep streams on the site, but Mahathir and the planners wanted water in the city for its looks and to cool it.^[3] The streams Sungai Chuau and Sungai Bisa were dammed and flooded to make a 400-hectare lake, fed through wetland cells planted with aquatic plants that filter run-off before it reaches the lake.^[3][5] The wetlands were finished in August 1998 and the lake in May 2002, and Mahathir opened the main dam on 20 August 2002.^[3]

The government moves in

The Prime Minister’s Office building, Perdana Putra, was finished ahead of the ministries’ buildings and was ready by early 1999.^[3] On 31 May 1999 the National Security Division and the Implementation Coordination Unit began work there. Mahathir spent his first day in his new office on 21 June 1999, and held the first Cabinet meeting in Putrajaya two days later.^[4]

More than 5,000 staff of the Prime Minister’s Department moved in stages from the government complex on Jalan Dato Onn in Kuala Lumpur. Some refused to go and asked for transfers to ministries that were to stay in Kuala Lumpur at the time, such as International Trade and Industry, Defence and Works. Those who drove in were given a RM150 travel allowance, and shuttle buses ran from Kuala Lumpur.^[3]

On 1 February 2001 Putrajaya became a Federal Territory and stopped being part of Selangor.^[3][4] The Constitution now says that Selangor’s territory excludes the Federal Territory of Putrajaya, created by the Constitution (Amendment) Act 2001, as it excludes Kuala Lumpur, which became a Federal Territory under a 1973 amendment.^[1]

What stayed in Kuala Lumpur

Malaysia’s Federal Constitution names Kuala Lumpur, not Putrajaya, as the federal capital, and leaves it to Parliament to decide otherwise. The Federal Capital Act 1960 does the same: under section 3, “in accordance with the provisions of Clause (1) of Article 154 of the Constitution the City of Kuala Lumpur shall be the Federal Capital.”^[1][2]

Perbadanan Putrajaya’s own history says the move was never meant to threaten Kuala Lumpur’s standing as the capital. Kuala Lumpur remains the financial and commercial centre, and it keeps the Istana Negara, the official residence of the King (the Yang di-Pertuan Agong), the Malaysian Parliament and many foreign embassies.^[3]

“Until Parliament otherwise determines, the municipality of Kuala Lumpur shall be the federal capital.”^[1]