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MIC will ask for space for Hindu temples at new housing estates where there are a lot of Hindus, to stop the sprouting of illegal temples nationwide.
"They will continue building illegal temples unless we provide them space in their housing estate," he said after chairing the MIC central working committee here yesterday.
He said MIC also wanted to combine smaller temples and would propose that the government provide additional land for this purpose.
For a start, he said MIC state Exco members from each state would be asked to set up a committee which would be directed to meet every temple head and compile the feedback.
Samy Vellu said the party was looking at merging partially-aided schools with fewer than 50 pupils.
"Some schools have three teachers with four pupils. We are proposing to merge some of the smaller schools to increase the number of pupils," he said, adding the party would work on merging some 150 small schools.
"With the increase in number of students, we can ask for government assistance to provide more facilities in these schools."
He said the move would allow them to monitor and enhance the educational level of the students and provide transport for those staying far from their schools.
On the discussions by party leaders with Education Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein on the future of these schools, he said: "We discussed problems faced by some of these small schools. Some teachers do not receive salaries and schools are running without any facilities."
He said MIC would organise talks with headmasters and the parent-teacher associations from these schools to get their feedback and ways to improve the standards of the schools.
He added some of schools saw a decline in the number of students after most of the former estate workers migrated to cities.
"Previously, these schools had 120 to 150 students. But after the migration, the number has dropped drastically."
There are 523 Tamil schools nationwide.
