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Guess what, the first meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Indian community development was held back in July last year. After that it was supposed to held in September. Strangely, there was no news about the committee meeting anywhere. And now, Star reports Samy Vellu as saying that the second meeting will be held in 23rd February. Let’s see the article:
Issues affecting the Indian community, including equity participation, are likely [LIKELY??? Then what the point of having the committee???] to be discussed at the second meeting of the Cabinet Committee for the Development of Indians on Feb 23, said MIC president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu.
He said the committee, chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, would discuss the MIC’s proposals, including the setting-up of a mechanism to increase Indians’ equity participation from the current 1.2% to 3% in 2020.
… The MIC had suggested that a mechanism be established within the government-owned Permodalan Nasional Bhd to assist poor Indians to buy shares through 50% grants and 50% loans from the Government [So, will be it finalised in the 2nd meeting or pushed to next meeting?].
Samy Vellu said several decisions were taken at the first Cabinet Committee meeting last July 1 including streamlining the procedure for bringing in Hindu, Sikh and other priests from India [which took how long implemented?], agreeing to a policy of converting all partially-aided Tamil schools to fully-aided schools [note the words – “agreeing” to a “policy”] and increasing the number of Public Service Department scholarships for Indians studying in foreign universities to 163 students [its well documented that this happened before the meeting after MIC leader went to plead with the PSD].
Other decisions include enabling those who scored 9As and above in the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia examination to receive scholarships to study in local universities [this is for all students, not Indians only – says MCA!], recognising the MIC-run Asian Institute of Medicine, Science and Technology University as among the institutes where scholarship students could enrol and agreeing to set up a special task force under the Home Ministry to deal with the 30,000 Indians born in Malaysia who are still without documents [hopefully the task force will present how many cases it has solved and the problems faced].
He said the Government had also approved RM80mil over the last 18 months to redevelop 50 Tamil schools which were in a dilapidated state.
And if you noticed, Samy said the RM80 millions for schools were to “REDEVELOP” Tamil schools. Can he specify how much of the funds is for “repair” works and how much is for constructing “new” buildings? There’s a big difference between the words being used. For example, in SJKT Vallambrosa, the money given was for “repairs” and not for adding new buildings. So, how to solve the problem of overcrowding in the school?
