Gov't to review Malaysian Indian Blueprint, says Kula

The Pakatan Harapan government will review the Malaysian Indian Blueprint (MIB) that was drawn up by the previous BN administration, Human Resources Minister M Kulasegaran announced today.

“There is no compromise, whatever was said earlier by the (former) government has to be reviewed. Whatever that was said in the MIB will be reviewed.

“It has to be said that the background of the MIB is nothing unusual, (with) some matters already raised in Parliament long before this,” the Ipoh Barat MP told a press conference after launching the Tamil Foundation’s 2018/2018 AGM in Shah Alam this morning.

Launched in April last year, the 10-year MIB promised to raise Indian participation in both the civil service and local tertiary institutions to seven percent, and to set up a clearing system to enable citizenship to be granted to stateless Indians.

It also promised to allocate RM40 million for higher education assistance, RM500 million to set up a revolving fund for to entrepreneurs, and another RM500 million under Permodalan Nasional Bhd targeting the bottom 40 percent income group of the Indian community.

Upskilling Indians

Kulasegaran also promised to upskill the Indian community through skills-training initiatives.

He revealed that he had previously met with Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad over the issue.

“A vast majority of (Indians) are either jobless or left out of the mainstream.

“Mahathir met me personally on Monday in a one-on-one interview and said some special incentives must be done to address this issue.

“As the human resources minister, I should be able to do the upscaling and skills training... and transform these workers to a higher income group. That is one of the things I have instructed my ministry to do,” he said.

Specifically, Kulasegaran said he would look into improving enrolment into technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions.

“The biggest problem I have noticed that last year there was quite a drop, some 30 to 40 percent, in the intake into skills training colleges.

“This needs to be addressed, or else there will be a case of cheap labour being maintained.

“We want Malaysian labour to be well paid and skilled. We want to do that and we can do that,” he stressed.

Kulasegaran also said that promises made to the Indian community in Harapan’s 14th general election manifesto, including to fully aid Tamil schools and to build a Tamil secondary school in Penang, will be honoured. -Mkini