Saravanan hits out at errant developers
THE Federal Territories and Wellbeing Ministry will advocate a policy change in the way residential development is legislated in areas where schools are located.
“Developers all along have taken advantage of weaknesses in the legislation by taking over City Hall land near schools for residential development,” said its deputy minister Datuk M. Saravanan.
“There are national type schools in the
Federal Territories which do not have room
for expansion because existing open areas
are being taken over,” he said after launching an anti-dengue campaign at SJK (T) Jalan Cheras, 2½ Mile, Cheras yesterday.
Admitting that Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) should take responsibility for the large -scale approvals of open space near national type schools for development, he said the practice must stop if the “people first” concept was to have any real significance in nation-building.
He said errant developers most often submitted development plans with facilities for the community but on obtaining approval, the public facilities were either scaled down or discontinued.
After the launch, the MIC vice-president spent more than an hour touring the school and came away disappointed.
“I cannot believe this school, which has been in existence since 1949 has no playground, no field and proper facilities,” he told a press conference.
The school, with 350 pupils and 32 teachers is inconspicuously located on a 0.75ha land behind the DBKL Health Department in Cheras.
Enrolment, which once topped 500 has over time dropped as more parents sent their children to fully-aided government schools.
It has catered for children of manual workers of DBKL, who live in DBKL public housing nearby, and the large poor Indian community in Cheras.
“After some 50 years, the school infrastructure has hardly improved,” Saravanan noted.
The deputy minister promised he would personally look into approving a plot of DBKL land adjacent to the school for its expansion
“The land is big enough for a school field as well as more classrooms,” he added.
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