He told FMT the task force would get to the roots of the community’s problems and address these in its plans and policies.
“We intend to work out a five-year plan,” he said.
The task force will be composed of community leaders, experts in various fields and representatives of NGOs. Waytha indicated it would do the work he had planned for a unit he wanted the previous Putrajaya administration to set up.
“When I served under the Barisan Nasional government,” he said, “we were to set up a special unit to look after Indian issues to bring them on par with mainstream development, but it never materialised.”
Waytha was appointed deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in 2013. He resigned in less than a year, accusing the government of failing to fulfil the promises it had made to the Indians.
Klang MP Charles Santiago also spoke to FMT about the current government’s plans for the Indian community.
He noted that a portion of funds for the Malaysian Indian Transformation Unit was being channelled to the private sector for programmes that are already run by the government, such as technical and vocational education and training.
He said it would be better to pay more attention to enhancing the skills of the Indian poor so they could become small business owners.
“Now, with computers and digital marketing, they really don’t need to have shops,” he said. “They can carry out their trade from their computers.”
He said this was the approach taken by the Selangor government in its Selangor Indian Entrepreneur programme.
“We have shown that it can deliver, and I think the federal government can also learn from our experience,” he added.
Zouhair Rosli, a senior researcher at DM Analytics, said the government needed to be clear about which socio-economic indicator it wanted to focus on in helping the Indian community.
“If we look at social mobility, Indians have the worst,” he said. “The chances of Indian children having a higher level of education than their parents are lower than they are for Bumiputeras or Chinese.”
He noted that the youth unemployment rate was highest in the Indian community. It is nearly 20%.
Poverty rates, however, were higher among Bumiputeras, particularly those in Sabah and Sarawak, Zouhair said.
“The focus of affirmative action should be on those who deserve it,” he added.