As part of its newly-launched Malaysian Indian Blueprint (MIB), the government is reportedly embarking on a nationwide exercise to register undocumented Indian Malaysians.

MIC president Dr S Subramaniam was reported by New Straits Times (NST) as saying 23 zones nationwide have been identified for the drive, expected to start in Selangor on July 3 and last through the month.

"In the drive, we seek to register all those without citizenship, late registration of birth and those without identification card.

"We also aim to solve the issues of those who have registered with us in the past," NST reported Subramaniam as saying.

He added that Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has expressed willingness to set up a special team comprising his ministry staff, in particular those from the National Registration Department (NRD), to assist.

Subramaniam was reported as disputing claims there are 200,000 stateless Indians in the country as claimed by "some people".

"We have only got  about 12,000 to register in the last four years. So, through this exercise, we hope to know if there are many more to register, as what was claimed." he said.

He said the response to the exercise in July would show if the claims are true.

In the past, Subramaniam said, MIC, through the MyDaftar programme, had helped 7,126 people with the documentation, out of 12,726 registered with the party.

A total of 626 rejected applications were being re-processed, he added.

Najib launched his blueprint last month, with the 14th general election looming, and critics pointed to similar pre-election plans for the Indian community in the past that have never taken off.

"Proposals for the uplift of the Indian community were brought up on numerous occasions between 1974 and 2016.

"None were implemented in a manner suitable to satisfy the needs of the community," said National Indian Rights Action Team (Niat) chairperson Thasleem Mohd Ibrahim.

In particular, the infamous Hindu Rights Action Force's (Hindraf) joint blueprint with Prime Minister Najib Razak, which was announced just weeks before the 13th general election, had also fizzled out.

This led to Hindraf's chairperson P Waythamoorthy resigning from his given post as a deputy minister seven months after BN won the election.