Malaysia to recruit more Indians-origin civil servants

Kuala Lumpur, Feb. 14 (ANI): Malaysia's Human Resources Minister Dr. S. Subramaniam has indicated a major breakthrough in request by the Malaysian Indian Congress to increase non-Malay recruitments in the civil service.

Subramaniam said the matter was decided in a meeting attended by the Chief Secretary to the Government Mohd Sidek Hassan, Public Services Commission (PSC) chairman Jamaluddin Ahmad Damanhuri and Public Services Department Director General Ismail Adam in Putrajaya on Friday.

"A memo (memorandum) will be issued (by the PSC) on the matter soon. Let's wait for the memo," the MIC secretary-general Subramaniam said.

The decision will be discussed in a Cabinet Committee meeting for Indian Development scheduled on February 23, which is expected to be chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, The Star quoted him, as saying.

The Malaysian Indian Congress wants an eight percent Indian representation in the civil service.

Earlier, MIC president S. Samy Vellu had observed that the number of Indians civil servants in Malaysia was somewhere between 3.5 per cent to less than five percent.

A news report had claimed that Indians had accounted for only 2.5 per cent out of 486,802 civil services applicants in Malaysia.

However, PSD Director General Ismail had said the situation was difficult to change although the PSD was trying to reduce the gap among the races in the civil service. (ANI)