Tasek Gelugor

Overview

Tasek Gelugor or sometimes spelled as Tasik Gelugor is a district within Seberang Perai Utara on Penang mainland. Located near the Kedah state border, the place is named due to the type of fruit tree called Gelugor, or assam gelugor.

Altough the town is accessible and close to Penang Island, it is still considered a rural part of Penang. There are many small villages surrounding the main town. The main economic drive of the district is agriculture with much of the area surrounding Tasek Gelugor covered in oil palm plantations. There is also Air Itam Educational Forest, a sizable mangrove area within the district which is open to the public and tourists who are interested in learning its unique flora and fauna.

Within the next five years, plans are afoot to make Tasek Gelugor an agro tourism centre. It would be a hub for river tourism, as well as a haven for those interested in freshwater fish, prawns and other edible life from rivers. This effort is being spearheaded by local cooperatives with supervision from local university UTM to ensure its proper implementation.

 

Amenities and facilities

There are many publics school within Tasek Gelugor, catering to the diverse community living there. The sole vernacular school is SJK (C) Lee Chee. The closest medical facility is the local Klinik Kesihatan Tasek Gelugor. There is only one bank within the town while various supermarkets and small town sundry shops provides basic necessities to the townsfolk.

 

Accessibility and transportation

Getting into Tasik Gelugor is relatively straight forward. The easiest way is to use the federal roads that link Seberang Prai to the township. The town is also link to the PLUS highway via Bertam exit.  It takes about half hour journey by car from the Penang Island using the Penang Bridge.

Tasik Gelugor can also be reached using the train. There is a station within the town catering to the ETS train that passes through town three times a day. Another train service that serves the area is the Komuter trains that travel from Butterworth to Padang Besar. This train service runs once every hour during peak hour and once every two hours thereafter.

As for bus services, Rapid Penang provides hourly services from Penang Central, Butterworth as well as from Kepala Batas into Tasik Gelugor.