Many thorny issues that has swayed the Indian community from supporting the Barisan Nasional in the last general election are being addressed by the current administration of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, says MIC president S Samy Vellu.

He said among the issues were the poor condition of Tamil schools and its status; location and allocation for Hindu temples, job opportunities in the civil service, higher intake into local public universities, share allocations, educational and business loan facilities and more business opportunities/government contracts.

samy vellu exclusive on tamil schools 080708 02 He said for Tamil schools, the government has agreed to convert all partially-aided schools into fully-aided schools, while a whopping RM130 million allocation has been set aside for the next two years to rebuild many of the schools.

"As for Hindu temples, we have requested the government to increase the annual allocation for temples from the present RM1 million," he said in a statement.

On job opportunities in the civil service, the government has set a quota of 7.4 percent for Indians, equal to the number of their population in the country. The intake is being monitored by (Human Resources Minister) Dr S Subramaniam,” Samy Vellu said.

The government has also set a quota of 7.4 percentage for Indians to enter public universities annually, he said, adding that he met Higher Education Minister Khaled Nordin yesterday to seek for more places for Indians to do professional courses in several public universities namely Universiti Malaya.

Stop complaining and help

Through the effort of the MIC, the government had also recently allocated 15 percent of the recently-launched 3.33 billion units of the Amanah Saham Malaysia shares for Indians worth almost RM500 million.

He said MIC had proposed that the government assist the Indians by providing a partial grant or loan to buy the shares through any of its agencies or financial institutions.

"We are also currently discussing with the government to allocate at least 20 to 30 percent of the free Amanah Saham Wawasan shares for Indians," he said.

indian crowd malaysia 291107 He also said MIC has secured more Public Service Department scholarships for Indian students and was discussing with the government to increase the numbers.

"The government has also introduced many business loan schemes to assist small and medium industries run by Indians and MIC has sought more and bigger amount for Indian entrepreneurs," he said.

He chided certain quarters who kept harping that the government has neglected the Indians and that they were being sidelined while the other races were progressing.

"Instead on harping and bad mouthing the government day in, day out without realising what the government is doing, they should assist the Indians to plug into the system made available by the government and channel their grouses to the proper authority," he added.