Nationwide registration campaign for Malaysian Indians in June - MIC

He said the campaign, to be held from June 3 to 26, is the first priority agenda to address the plight of the Indians under the Malaysian Indian Blueprint, which was initiated and launched by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak on April 23.

Dr Subramaniam, who is also the Health Minister, said the campaign would be held at 23 places in every state according to selected zones, in collaboration with the Home Ministry and the National Registration Department.

"This campaign will involve those who have registered with us and the issues are not yet solved, and those who have not registered," he told a news conference here today.

Dr Subramaniam said since the last four years, through the MyDaftar campaign, the government had received 12, 726 applications and solved 7,126 issues related to citizenship, late birth registration and identification.

"We have gone throughout the country and the number of cases we received was only about 12, 726 cases and we still have issues of 4,974 cases still under consideration. Some have claimed that there are 200,000 to 300,000 Indians who do not have documents. We want to know where they are, and that is why we want them to come out and register under this massive registration campaign," he said.

Under the 10-year blueprint, Dr Subramaniam said a special clearance system to grant citizenship to Indians who resided or were born in Malaya before 1957, to be executed by the Home Ministry.

Therefore, he called on all Malaysian Indians who were facing difficulties in obtaining identification papers to come forward to grab this opportunity so that the government could solve this problem once and for all.

"Of course, in some positive agenda of the government, there would be some negative comments to derail us. However, the prime minister is very serious in solving several issues faced by the community through strategies and policies," he said.

Dr Subramaniam also said some 626 cases registered under the MyDaftar campaign were rejected because people had difficulties in securing the relevant and valid documentation.

"Some say they were born in Malaysia but there is no document-based evidence to that claim. We have solved some of such cases by going to hospitals to check birth records in hospitals. The birth document is important to prove as Malaysians," he said.