“We receive many complaints from the public regarding the smell, air pollution and so on,” said A Sivanesan, who is responsible for human resources, health and Indian community affairs.

“So, we decided to restructure this industry and change it to the MPF method which is a closed-cage concept,” he said.

So far, the Perak government has reduced the number of pig farms from 115 to 87 while the rest will be closed or converted to chicken farms.

“The odour and air pollution from chicken farms are also a concern as we often receive complaints from residents, especially in Manjung, who say they cannot enjoy their meals. We can stop all these things if we change to this (MPF) system,” he said.

He said the federal government had issued instructions about the system in 2017, but implementation had been delayed. “Perak does not want to wait any longer so we want this implementation to be done immediately,” he said.

In other developments, he said the Perak government has applied for an increase in the health-related budget for the 2023 federal budget.

“We have discussed this with Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim with a request for an increase in hospital beds in the state, among other things because of overcrowding (patients). We want to increase the number of beds and facilities for the comfort of the public,” he added.

On Wednesday, menteri besar Saarani Mohamad submitted a list of applications for RM3 billion in development projects to be included in the 2023 federal budget.