Deputy entrepreneur development and cooperatives minister R Ramanan, who oversees Indian community affairs and Mitra, said the programmes focused on four key areas of development – education and training; entrepreneurship and careers; spirituality and culture; and social well-being.
Among the initiatives were the Dharma Madani programme for Hindu temples and community centres with an allocation of RM20 million, and a project to upgrade equipment and furniture at Tamil national-type schools with an allocation of RM12.8 million.
“All these programmes are currently at the fund disbursement stage and are expected to be completed by next month,” he said during the winding-up debate on the supply bill 2026 at the policy stage for Mitra in the Dewan Rakyat today.
Ramanan said a one-off assistance programme was also implemented for the minor maintenance of the homes belonging to B40 plantation workers with an allocation of RM10 million, along with a dialysis subsidy assistance programme amounting to RM10 million to benefit more than 1,000 dialysis patients.
He said all the approved programmes were being carried out based on the management guidelines approved by the Prime Minister’s Department to ensure orderly and transparent spending.
“In the spirit of transparency and openness, I have also instructed Mitra to display the list of recipients of all the initiatives on the official Mitra website, so the community at large can check the list of beneficiaries.
“The government and Mitra are always transparent and have nothing to hide,” he said.
Ramanan said previous governments had set aside more funds for Mitra to roll out the food basket programme.
In 2020, the government allocated RM6 million for the initiative, and in 2021, a sum of RM14 million was set aside. In 2022, some RM4.6 million was allocated, while only RM804,000 has been allocated for 2026.
He said his year’s programme was implemented in two phases, with the first phase involving an allocation of RM500,000 distributed to 5,100 recipients, and the second phase involving RM304,000, to be distributed before the end of this year.