One of my favourite quotes is by British author Samuel Johnson who said the road to hell is paved with good intentions.Governments everywhere claim good intentions to be the reasons for doing things, more so when the good things produced bad results.It was for this reason that I had resisted commenting on the government’s million-ringgit transformation of the iconic multi-ethnic Brickfields into Little India.
It is one of those 1 Malaysia projects which came about following Prime Minister Najib Razak’s walkabout in Pantai Dalam, Petaling Street and Brickfields.The sparkling but not necessarily spanking clean Little India is threatening to harm the government’s popularity.While the contractors who harvested RM35 million in government contracts and the landlords who are merrily upping rentals are pleased, the traders and residents are not.I am familiar with Brickfields, having started to frequent it as early as the 1970s when Bernama’s office was located at Wisma Belia in Jalan Syed Putra (then Lornie Road).
The food there was good and the price was reasonable. There was a finger-licking good nasi kandar stall at the Peking Hotel in Jalan Tun Sambanthan. Peking Hotel had long closed so were the nasi kandar stall and the Chinese-operated coffeeshop where it was located.There was another nasi kandar stall in another Chinese-operated restaurant a stone’s throw away from the YMCA hostel and the old Lido Cinema. The cinema has been torn down and replaced by a multi-storey building, which today houses a bank and a private college. My barber is located at the YMCA.
According to reports by The Star and The Malaysian Insider, the shopkeepers are complaining of rising rentals and falling sales following the government’s redevelopment that converted the Brickfields into Little India.They claimed that the landlords had raised rent by as much as 40 per cent — to RM20,000 per month for some shoplots — since Najib launched the project in October.The media reported that during a meeting with Lembah Pantai PKR MP Nurul Izzah Anwar and Bukit Bintang DAP MP Fong Kui Lun, traders also complained that the traffic situation has worsened and further affected sales.
I can vouch for that. Turning Jalan Sultan Abdul Samad into a one-way street affected at least six schools, two churches, a large surau, a Buddhist temple and several civic premises like the Malaysian Association for the Blind and the Girl Guides Hall — risking the lives of schoolchildren, worshippers and the blind.Nurul Izzah pointed that there is a lack of communication between the government and the community. That too I can vouch.
When the shopkeepers and shoppers complained about traffic congestion and the lack of parking space during the construction of the project, Federal Territories and Urban Wellbeing Minister Datuk Raja Nong Chik Raja Zainal Abidin had pledged to ease the clampdown on illegal parking. But today, the police and City Hall traffic wardens regularly issue summonses for illegal parking.Brickfields Business Council (BBC) secretary-general A. Karupiah claimed that the crime rate in the area has risen after the Brickfields police station was moved to Seri Petaling.
So the prime minister might have paved the roads in Little India in the colour of gold, but the traders and residents are seeing red over rising rentals, falling sales and worsening crime.One wonders if a proper socio-economic and demographic study was carried out before the project, which was clearly aimed at winning the hearts and minds of the (Malaysian) Indians, was implemented.It could be that most of the landlords in Little India are not (Malaysian) Indians after all. For sure a great number of Little India’s residents today are expatriate Indians. They could be the ones feeling very at home in the Malaysian version of their country.
Who did the PM listen to when he jumped wholeheartedly into the Little India project? But one thing is sure. The president of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Kenneth Eswaran, is a close associate of the PM. (When I visited Najib at his family home in Pekan on nomination day in the 2008 general election, Eswaran was among the people present.)
Que sera sera. — kadirjasin.blogspot.com
Source : http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/breakingviews/article/little-india-paved-in-the-colour-of-gold-but...-a.-kadir-jasin/
It is one of those 1 Malaysia projects which came about following Prime Minister Najib Razak’s walkabout in Pantai Dalam, Petaling Street and Brickfields.The sparkling but not necessarily spanking clean Little India is threatening to harm the government’s popularity.While the contractors who harvested RM35 million in government contracts and the landlords who are merrily upping rentals are pleased, the traders and residents are not.I am familiar with Brickfields, having started to frequent it as early as the 1970s when Bernama’s office was located at Wisma Belia in Jalan Syed Putra (then Lornie Road).
The food there was good and the price was reasonable. There was a finger-licking good nasi kandar stall at the Peking Hotel in Jalan Tun Sambanthan. Peking Hotel had long closed so were the nasi kandar stall and the Chinese-operated coffeeshop where it was located.There was another nasi kandar stall in another Chinese-operated restaurant a stone’s throw away from the YMCA hostel and the old Lido Cinema. The cinema has been torn down and replaced by a multi-storey building, which today houses a bank and a private college. My barber is located at the YMCA.
According to reports by The Star and The Malaysian Insider, the shopkeepers are complaining of rising rentals and falling sales following the government’s redevelopment that converted the Brickfields into Little India.They claimed that the landlords had raised rent by as much as 40 per cent — to RM20,000 per month for some shoplots — since Najib launched the project in October.The media reported that during a meeting with Lembah Pantai PKR MP Nurul Izzah Anwar and Bukit Bintang DAP MP Fong Kui Lun, traders also complained that the traffic situation has worsened and further affected sales.
I can vouch for that. Turning Jalan Sultan Abdul Samad into a one-way street affected at least six schools, two churches, a large surau, a Buddhist temple and several civic premises like the Malaysian Association for the Blind and the Girl Guides Hall — risking the lives of schoolchildren, worshippers and the blind.Nurul Izzah pointed that there is a lack of communication between the government and the community. That too I can vouch.
When the shopkeepers and shoppers complained about traffic congestion and the lack of parking space during the construction of the project, Federal Territories and Urban Wellbeing Minister Datuk Raja Nong Chik Raja Zainal Abidin had pledged to ease the clampdown on illegal parking. But today, the police and City Hall traffic wardens regularly issue summonses for illegal parking.Brickfields Business Council (BBC) secretary-general A. Karupiah claimed that the crime rate in the area has risen after the Brickfields police station was moved to Seri Petaling.
So the prime minister might have paved the roads in Little India in the colour of gold, but the traders and residents are seeing red over rising rentals, falling sales and worsening crime.One wonders if a proper socio-economic and demographic study was carried out before the project, which was clearly aimed at winning the hearts and minds of the (Malaysian) Indians, was implemented.It could be that most of the landlords in Little India are not (Malaysian) Indians after all. For sure a great number of Little India’s residents today are expatriate Indians. They could be the ones feeling very at home in the Malaysian version of their country.
Who did the PM listen to when he jumped wholeheartedly into the Little India project? But one thing is sure. The president of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Kenneth Eswaran, is a close associate of the PM. (When I visited Najib at his family home in Pekan on nomination day in the 2008 general election, Eswaran was among the people present.)
Que sera sera. — kadirjasin.blogspot.com
Source : http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/breakingviews/article/little-india-paved-in-the-colour-of-gold-but...-a.-kadir-jasin/
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