A total of 78,000 rats have been captured through the '1 Rat RM3' campaign organised by Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) since 2012.

Federal Territories’ deputy Minister Shahruddin Md Salleh said remunerations totalling RM170,000 were given to the individuals who managed to catch them.

"I personally think that such a monetary reward can be changed to a better payment in the form of rebates.

"The rebates can be used to make payments such as rental of houses and so on," he said at the opening of the 2018 Mega Gotong Royong at the Seri Semarak Rakyat Housing Project (PPR) today.

The campaign initially paid RM1 per rat but the rate was raised to RM3 starting 2015.

Meanwhile, Shahruddin drew attention that 64 cases of leptospirosis had been recorded in Kuala Lumpur to date while 160 cases were recorded last year.

Also present at the function were Setiawangsa Member of Parliament Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad and ministry secretary-general Adnan Md Ikhsan.

In the meantime, Adnan wanted consumers to act proactively by urging traders to provide biodegradable plastic bags for every purchase to preserve the environment.

He said biodegradable plastic bags could easily disintegrate and were not charged to consumers.

To date, he said 200 premises had been compounded because they did not provide biodegradable plastic bags. 

- Bernama