while land is scarce, as Singapore Changi Airport and Johor Bahru Senai Airport are nearby. Road within the island was also started and the first stretch of the , the east west arterial road was completed (out of the stretch planned in the ultimate stage). Branch roads were also built to land parcels allotted for resort development. Within each land area allocated, the resort agencies constructed their own internal road network. Drinking water facilities were also created by constructing a reservoir of 5 million litres and a service reservoir of 1.5 million litres for supply to a water treatment plant. From this plant, potable water supply system has been created to all the resort areas. Electricity supply is also ensured through a Power generating plant of 18 MW plant with capacity to upgrade to 24 MW. Within each resort area water and power supply connections to the resorts are done by the resort agencies. The potable water that is supplied meets the WHO standards. Sewage Treatment is done in all the resorts through modular Sewage treatment plants. The recycled effluent is put to use for irrigation. Another important civic amenity attended is the disposal of solid waste. The solid waste is collected from the resorts. It is systematically disposed in a centralized sanitary landfill site. There are 15 banks, 7 hotels and 6 golf courses. Telecommunication Service facility available is the International Net Work. Flora and fauna Flora In Bintan, the primary forest cover was in a limited area on the hills. There was extensive deforestation done mostly for the cultivation of gambier (Uncaria gembieri). The plantation size of each gambier plantation was . For processing of gambier leaves firewood was essential. This requirement was met by cutting forests of as much as the sized gambier plantations. With this amount of forest degradation, the gambier processing could be sustained for 12 years only. Forest was not available for use for the processing, and production of gambier was discontinued, while efforts continued to find new stocks of firewood. Inevitably, Gambier was totally abandoned. In the 20th century rubber plantation replaced gambier. Even the rubber plantations were abandoned due to water logging problems. Now, on the higher reaches of the hills secondary forests have developed in those areas where water logging is not prevalent. The abandoned land is also now put to other uses. In the rain forests of the island on