Review Indian community projects

I REFER to the report, “Task force meant to review projects for Indian community”, that appeared in The Star yesterday.

I laud the announcement by Human Resources Minister M. Kulasegaran that the new government will review all existing projects in two weeks’ time when it meets.

Malaysians of Indian descent comprise 2.2 million out of 32 million people in Malaysia.

Issues such as red identity cards, lack of citizenship, education in Tamil schools without adequate facilities – all this affects especially those in the B40 category, with a ot monthly income up to RM3,855. This amount is insufficient to manage a family with the ever-increasing cost of living currently.

Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has repeatedly said “the Indians were nation builders who built roads, railways, schools, ports just like the Chinese who worked in the tin mines”. Together they managed the twin pillars of the nation, rubber and tin, that supported the government of the day.

However, according to a report in the Economist magazine in 2003, Indians comprise 60% of urban squatters and 41% of beggars.

Over 800,000 Indians were displaced from the estates in the 1970s with promises that they would be reskilled and given outplacement – none of which took place. This resulted in a huge increase in urban squatters and a rise in gangsterism.

It’s good that the new government’s special task force is revisiting the Malaysian Indian Blueprint!

C. SATHASIVAM SITHERAVELLU Seremban