Palanivel Appointed Lead Minister For Socio-economic Development Of Indian Community

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 22 (Bernama) -- Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak on Sunday announced that Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk G. Palanivel has been appointed as the lead minister for the socio-economic development of the Indian community in the country.

The announcement on the appointment of Palanivel, who is also MIC president, was made by Najib at the Malaysia Tamil Schools Community's annual gathering held at Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan (SJK) Tamil Kinrara here.

Najib said the community should build a vision centred on "nambikei" which is belief in Tamil to bring it forward.

"If we are guided by the principles and philosophy of 'nambikei' and if we have 'nambikei' among us, there is nothing that we cannot achieve and no problem that cannot be solved.

"I am hoping that this 'nambikei', which is a common platform in the Barisan Nasional (BN) leadership, will bring returns that we all can be proud of," he said.

Najib added that the government was committed to the future growth of (SJK) Tamil schools, thereby the future of the Indian community in the country and that from 2009 till last year, the government had allocated RM340 million for physical and infrastructure development for Tamil schools across the nation.

He said, in terms of management and administration, the government had invested about RM2 billion for Tamil schools since 2009.

"In the 2012 Budget, I had announced an additional allocation of RM100 million for upgrading Tamil schools and for their physical and infrastructure development.

"The expenditure list is being prepared and I hope the sum will be spent well so as to truly benefit the schools concerned," he said.

He said the government was also cooperating on the matter on other funding groups like the "Community Chest", a welfare fund which contributed RM5 million to Tamil schools last year alone.

He said he hoped government-linked companies (GLCs) and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) would also contribute towards education development in the country including for Tamil schools.

"The government has also allocated RM3 million to Community Builders Foundation (CBF) whose chairman is the MIC preisdent. Through this NGO, we have helped more than 4,000 Tamil school students throughout the country who were weak in their studies but today have overcome the problem because of the intervention of the CBF.

"I have also helped the Sri Murugan Centre to produce outstanding students," he said, adding that as a result of the efforts, the performance of students at Tamil schools was on the uptrend, showing a 47 per cent increase in the number of students who scored 7As in the Ujian Penilaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) examination between 2009 and 2011.

He added that last year, the number of Tamil school students passing all subjects in the UPSR reached a new record at 53 per cent and was confident that the percentage would improve in the future.