MIC president S Samy Vellu today announced an ambitious five-year project that will cost RM13.5 million to combat social ills among the Indian community.

The neighborhood-based project includes recruiting the help of local leaders and a three-phase plan designed to unite the community with the formation of localised committees responsible for health and security.

"This is a social programme to identify the problems plaguing the Indian community," Samy told reporters after officiating the project at the Works Ministry in Kuala Lumpur.

Scheduled to be conducted in 30 locations nationwide, the programmes include capacity building for communities through health and safety campaigns, increasing interaction among communities, women and family capacity building and youth capacity building.

The project would entail an annual budget of RM2.7 million and will target squatter areas in all peninsula states, except for Kelantan and Terengganu.

"We have also asked local leaders to act as our partners. Grassroots leaders are the catalysts for change," said Samy who is also works minister.

According to the minister, the government has already given the Social Development and National Unity Ministry an initial sum of RM540,000.

The money will then be channeled to MIC's Social Strategic Foundation (YSS) to carry out the project, he said.

MIC will also seek the help of various non-governmental organisations, he added.

Racial segregation

In an unrelated matter, Samy said the issue of segregation in schools should not be turned into a racial one.

"I don't want this issue blown out of proportion. It can be resolved," he said, adding that in a multiracial country such problems arise from time to time.

"This issue has also been raised with the education minister and I believe he would be able to resolve it," he added.

Last Saturday, an MIC Youth official revealed that a school in Klang practised rcaial segregation.

Following this, National Union of Teaching Profession (NUTP) chairman Siva Subramaniam claimed that 10 percent of the 10,000 public schools in Malaysia are involved in racial segregation.

Siva also furnished the names of 30 schools to the Education Ministry and the ministry said it will investigate the claim.

Meanwhile, DAP national chairman Lim Kit Siang in a press statement today said that racial segregation in schools did not bode well for nation-building

"How can schools be the nurseries for national unity when the students are streamed according to race, instead of academic performance, gender or the examination package the students signed up for, as well as ensuring there is a balance in the racial mix?" asked Lim.