KUALA LUMPUR: The opposition can state all sorts of things but only the Barisan Nasional government has changed the fate of the Telugu and the Indian community as a whole, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
“That is why it is important for us to continue to put our trust in BN or ‘Nambikkai’ in its government. If we put our trust in them we can bring the Telugu and the overall Indian community to greater heights,” he said at the Telugu New Year open house yesterday.
Najib said he was happy to see the progress the community had made, especially since 2010 when he had attended a community celebration.
He deemed the event a “turning point” as since then the Telugu community in Malaysia has been increasingly recognised as a community through a contribution of RM3 million to the Telugu Association of Malaysia which Najib also initiated.
“Today 3,500 Telugu students have successfully mastered the language, Moral Education and so on and they will be accredited as scholars and professionals in the future,” he said while pledging financial assistance to the association’s Telugu Academy in Hulu Selangor.
Najib further said that through programmes to develop the Indian community 25,000 entrepreneurs have been given assistance and benefits in the form of loans which were channelled through the programmes under the Secretariat for Empowerment of Indian Entrepreneurs (SEED), Tekun Nasional and Amanah Iktihar Malaysia.
Meanwhile President of the Telugu Association of Malaysia Datuk Dr Achaiah Kumar Rao said despite being in existence for 60 years, no special focus was given to the community until Najib’s gaze fell on it in 2010.
He said that the community of about 300,000 who had come to Malaya as labourers during British rule had also risen due to the government’s care and development initiatives.
Also present at the event were Andhra Pradesh Deputy Speaker Mandali Buddha Prasad and Nizamabad (Telangana) MP K. Kavitha.
Former MIC president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu and MIC deputy president Datuk Seri S.K. Devamany and Federal Territories Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor also attended the event.