Compiled by ZAKIAH KOYA, R. ARAVINTHAN and JAROD LIM
THE Perak Indian Education Development Foundation was allocated more than 800ha of land to plant oil palm trees, the proceeds of which were supposed to have gone to students from B40 families.
But in the 10 years since the programme began, only one payment of RM150 per student has been disbursed, says a Perak executive councillor, Malaysia Nanban reported.
And now the foundation is requesting an additional 400ha of land.
State exco member for Indian community affairs, A. Sivanesan, said the land near Felda Besout was cleared and replanted with oil palm with the help of the National Land Finance Cooperative Society (NLFCS).
Despite several harvests already, the foundation is claiming that 400 acres (162ha) of the land is unusable as there are rocky layers, with this eating into profits.
However, Sivanesan said the foundation’s request for an additional 400ha after giving back so little to the community in the past was “laughable”.
“Any such request must also be approved by the state exco, but the foundation does not even have any state government representatives on its board,” he said, adding that it is the foundation’s duty to regularly update the public about the management of the land and the disbursement of the proceeds.
In 2013, the state government allocated the land to be managed by the foundation, and the proceeds from the plantation were supposed to help Indian students in the state.
Similar land allocations were also given for private Chinese schools and private Islamic schools in 2008.
There have long been questions about the management of the land under the foundation as little has been publicised about payouts, compared with the Chinese schools that have reportedly received significant sums from their land.
> The Malaysian-Indian community in Johor Baru is fed up after waiting 30 years for a designated area to perform their funeral rites, Malaysia Nanban reported.A frustrated resident identified as R. Suresh from Pasir Gudang said the community has long been promised such a land.
However, despite demands, demonstrations and discussions by Indian organisations and NGOs – along with numerous applications to the state – the matter has yet to be resolved.
In 2018, a tender was issued for development in a location identified under then chief minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin, but this was cancelled following the change in government.The plan was later revived under Datuk Hasni Mohammad, who was mentri besar from February 2020 to March 2022.
The community is waiting to see if the matter will get anywhere under current Mentri Besar Datuk Onn Hafiz Ghazi.
Suresh said as the matter remains unresolved, they are still today facing difficulties finding a proper place to conduct funeral rites for their loved ones.
The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.
