STATELESS Indians are not are major problem said MIC president S. Subramaniam.

The health minister said MIC has been addressing the issue through the MyDaftar programme which has been carried out since 2011.

“There are some people who have lied and said there are 300,000 (stateless Indians).

“To test the validity of that statement, we got all the political parties and 15 major non-governmental organisations to go all over the country under the MegaMydaftar programme,” he said at a press conference at City Hall headquarters in Kuala Lumpur.

Subramaniam said the MegaMydaftar programme registered only 2,500 stateless Indians.

“There are those that claim there are more (300,000 stateless Indians). I disagree.”

Subramanian said he didn’t discount the fact there could be more stateless Indians in the country but was certain it could would be not as high as claimed.

“I don’t want to put a figure on it, but our venture with MyDaftar only drew 2,500 applicants,” he said.

Earlier, Prime Minister Najib Razak and Subramaniam handed out 177 citizenship documents to successful applicants.

This year, 1,054 Indians were successful in their application to become Malaysian citizens.

The MyDaftar programme was carried out between 2011 to 2016 and resolved 7,108 out of 12,726 cases.

When asked about earlier reports there could be more than 20,000 stateless Indians, Subramanian: “We want to solve this issue as quickly as possible. 

“We have done everything possible to resolve this issue. It is up to the people who have problems to come forward.” – October 31, 2017.