{"id":7261,"date":"2011-02-14T00:15:19","date_gmt":"2011-02-13T16:15:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/?p=7261"},"modified":"2011-02-14T00:15:19","modified_gmt":"2011-02-13T16:15:19","slug":"40-years-to-relocate-sjkt-merlimau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/tamil-schools\/2011\/02\/14\/40-years-to-relocate-sjkt-merlimau\/","title":{"rendered":"40 years to relocate SJKT Merlimau"},"content":{"rendered":"

You be the own judge. Looks like the windfall for Merlimau folks has been hastened after death of the assemblyman. Need not wait till next GE or 11th Malaysian Plan. BTW, I think the councilor was unprepared for the interview. Reflects poorly on him. Should have postponed the interview.<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

The related article<\/a><\/strong> is below (including some of the translation of the interviews above):<\/p>\n

\n

After more than two decades of promises, SRJK (T) Merlimau, now squatting in the compound of a secondary school, may finally get its own premises.\u00a0

\"srjkBut even Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s presence at the groundbreaking ceremony tomorrow may not be enough to convince residents.

Approached byMalaysiakini <\/em>during a visit to the constituency last week, voter Ramachandran, 60, said that the same promise has been made for the past four general elections.\u00a0

\u201cThey are now measuring the place, but we don’t know what will happen after the by-election,\u201d said Ramachandran, who has lived in Merlimau almost all his life.\u00a0

The promise is also pretty familiar to Durairaj, 48, who had attended the school with his siblings some three decades ago.\u00a0

\"promised\u201cI was a student there, as were my sister and brother. Now my children go there. We have heard this promise many times.\u00a0

\u201cThe first plot of land had a temple on it. They demolished the temple and said that they will build the Tamil school there, but now there’s another building on the land,\u201d he said when approached.\u00a0

Other locals asked about the Tamil school during\u00a0Malaysiakini<\/em>‘s visit to the constituency corroborate the father-of-two’s story.\u00a0

Locals point out ‘promised lands’

Pointing to a Tenaga Nasional Berhad building, Padmanathan, 47, said the land referred to by Durairaj was \u201cpromised\u201d for the Tamil school some \u201c20 to 25 years ago\u201d.

\"promisedApproached in front of the Merlimau BN operations room, the self-proclaimed loyal MIC man said it never came through because \u201cno one took the initiative\u201d.\u00a0

The second said ‘promised land’ is located in Taman Muhibbah about five minutes’ drive from the TNB building.\u00a0

Resident Saundriama, when asked, said that she has lived opposite the land for 19 years and heard the promise made about 10 years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout 10 years ago some government officers came to this land and measured it and told us that they will be moving the Tamil school here,\u201d she said.

\"bnThe land is mostly vacant except for a small pre-school.\u00a0

In 2008, said another Merlimau voter who prefers to be known only as Krishnan, BN had also promised a plot of land which is part of Sime Darby’s Merlimau oil palm estate, near the water treatment centre.\u00a0

Taking the\u00a0Malaysiakini <\/em>team to the plot of land, he said: \u201cIt was all said verbally. No black and white. (The government) said it will be here… We don’t know what happened, until now it’s still like this.\u201d

Exco man: Claims are nonsense

When met, Malacca executive councillor R Perumal said that the claims were \u201cnonsense\u201d and that a piece of land where Muhyiddin will perform the ground-breaking ceremony is the only one planned for the school.\u00a0

He said the school, which now has 175 students, has been sharing premises with the secondary school for 40 years.

According to Perumal, who was met when he was inspecting the land with Public Works Department engineers, the government started looking at moving the school a decade ago as enrollment was rising.\u00a0

\"rHe said that the federal government has allocated RM6.1 million under the 10th Malaysia Plan for the school, including for acquiring the five acres of land from Sime Darby. The land was acquired in 2004.\u00a0

The school’s parent-teacher association representative, R Supramaniam (left<\/em>), also said that that the previous PTA leaders were not too serious about it.

However, the new committee has been persistent about it and was told in January that the project will commence in the next six months.\u00a0

Project a ‘coincidence’

Perumal admitted that the project is now hastened following the death of Merlimau assemblyperson Mohamad Hidhir Abu Hassan.

\"final\u201cIt is just a coincidence. These things don’t happen overnight. You need time to acquire the land, etc. Don’t make an issue of it,\u201d he said, adding that construction is expected to be completed in one year.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

According to Durairaj, this is the first time he has seen the government test the soil and bring in heavy machinery to land promised for the school.\u00a0

\u201cI don’t know if it is real or it is a big ‘drama’ (but) I really hope that they will build the school this time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You be the own judge. Looks like the windfall for Merlimau folks has been hastened after death of the assemblyman. Need not wait till next GE or 11th Malaysian Plan. BTW, I think the councilor was unprepared for the interview. Reflects poorly on him. Should have postponed the interview. The related article is below (including […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[142,20],"class_list":["post-7261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tamil-schools","tag-malacca","tag-tamil-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7261\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}