I read with interest on the following article from the Star:

Most Indians are still unaware of the various financial and business development schemes offered by the government.

Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister Department Senator T. Murugiah said he was surprised that the community was not aware of these opportunities.

He said there were many programmes designed specially for those interested to venture into business activities, including agriculture and animal breeding.

Murugiah said some Indians had taken part in street rallies and blamed the government, claiming that the community was sidelined.

“In fact, we have many programmes and schemes to help the people, regardless of races, but the Indians were ignorant about them,” he said.

In view of this, Murugiah said seminars were carrying out nationwide to create more awareness about the business opportunities for the community.

“We will brief you on the government schemes and provide the necessary assistance to help you start a business,” he said at the Small Businesses and Agro-culture Seminar here on Sunday.

Murugiah has also called on Indians to be more vigilant about taking advantage of such schemes and opportunities.

I wonder, did the deputy ministers before Murugiah (or other ministers/agencies/departments) initiate such programmes to create awareness among the community? We are only seeing such awareness campaigns in recent times while for other races it has been done regularly over the years.

Even in this case, is just beginning. We have to see a 2 year plan at least to gauge the success of such awareness campaigns. We also have to look at the number of successful qualified applicants of business schemes.  Hopefully through such seminars, more people end up with doing some business and able to earn an income.

Let’s look at the hurdles facing those seeking information. Firstly, there’s the problem of accessibility in terms of locations. Most of the offices/branches are not near to the pockets of areas where Indians live. Secondly, the language barrier between service provider and those that speak broken English or Malay. Third, the lack of Indian staff in the front line especially acts as a mental block to the under-served community. They automatically feel they won’t be entertained. Fourthly, the information is not properly provided, resulting in multiple trips to the office, increased costs and repeated submissions. Those that lack schooling will find it quite tough to go through the process. Fifth, some of the schemes require documents that are not available to small-time or odd job workers. Thus, the mechanism to help them must also be explained so that they don’t feel sidelined.

The final reason is the staff of service providers themselves who at times do not do their job properly. This cuts across race because I have met Malay entrepreneurs who complained about government agencies/dept staff not doing their job properly/dragging their feet/expecting something/biased/careless/uninformed/rude etc.  When our makkals face similar situation, they immediately think of racial discrimination.

My view is that the information flow is mainly through RTM/Media Prima channels – something that is not the preference of poor, rural and suburban folks. The focus should be on Astro tamil channels, tamil papers, and THR Raaga too. The seminars should also be held in areas with high concentration of Indians, especially in rural and suburban areas (one was held in Sentul recently).

Also, those schemes that are exclusively for “bumiputras” or need some partnership/linkage with such groups must be clearly labelled so. This will avoid unnecessary anger and resentment when the applicant’s forms are rejected due to not fulfilling the “requirements”.

As more youths are exposed to such programmes, they chances of them wasting time loitering and getting involved with unhealthy elements will be reduced. A youth who is busy won’t have time for creating nuisance.

Ultimately, being ignored is half the story. After all this awareness campaign, some people will choose to remain ignorant.