Batang Berjuntai

Overview

Bestari Jaya (formerly Batang Berjuntai) is a township with a population of 20,000 people in Selangor, Malaysia. It is located in Kuala Selangor district. 

In 2007, the name Batang Berjuntai was renamed “Bestari Jaya” by the government. This village is located 55 kilometres, North-West from Kuala Lumpur, 30 kilometres away from Rawang, and 20 kilometres away from the town of Kuala Selangor. It is a multiracial village. The majority of villagers are Muslims and Hindus. 90 percent of the residents are Malay, followed by Indians and Chinese. Besides that, there are also Indian Muslims living here.

Batang Berjuntai was founded during the British rule in Malaya in the 1920s, and was mainly the land for rubber plantation initially. The land was also rich with tin and in the 1940s, “Berjuntai Tin and Pacific Tin‟ was established for the purpose of mining the rich earth. Consequently, the village was then named as “Kampung Berjuntai Tin” by the local people. Its name was then changed to “Kampung Berjuntai Jaya” in 1998, and finally the Sultan of Selangor renamed it as “Kampung Bestari Jaya” in 2006 to avert the phallic connotation of “Batang Berjuntai”.

To develop tourism in the village, the villagers cooperate with travel agencies, which organize trips to Bestari Jaya to promote their tourist spots like “Yu He Swallow City” and “Kampung Kuantan Fireflies”. Some of them are entrepreneurs who create employment opportunities by expanding their oil palm plantation, as well as catfish and goat farming industries. Basically, most of the villagers work as fruit pickers, oil palm farmers, estate workers. There are also those who work as oil palm factory workers as oil palm is the biggest plantation in Bestari Jaya.  There is still quite a big agriculture land areas for sale in Ijok, Bestari Jaya. 

The main languages spoken are Mandarin and Malay. Bestari Jaya was once a quiet village but ever since the establishment of Universiti Industry Selangor (Unisel) in 1999, there are many young local and foreign students who are living here.

The state government intends to transform Bestari Jaya into a Selangor Knowledge City by the year 2011 and keep the residents in sync with the development that is taking place currently. One of the actions taken is the establishment of Universiti Industri Selangor (UNISEL) in 1999 on the abandoned tin mine. UNISEL, which is the first state funded private university in Malaysia aims to provide a world-class tertiary education as well as research and development in industrial technology, with the motto “Ke Arah Kecemerlangan Industri‟, which is in line with the vision of transforming Bestari Jaya into a Selangor Knowledge City.

Property Types

The residents of Bestari Jaya stay in houses along the roads, living on their own land or in housing estates. The types of houses that can be found are terrace, single-storey terrace, and shop houses.