Government to hire 2,000 more Indian counter staff

PETALING JAYA: An additional 2,000 Indians will be appointed as frontline staff at government agencies nationwide in a move to increase the intake of Indian civil servants.

MIC president Datuk Seri G. Palanivel said the total number of Indian counter staff would be increased to about 3,000 from the current 1,000.

Palanivel, who is Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, thankedPrime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak for approving the increase.

“I would also like to thank Public Service Commission (PSC) chairman Tan Sri Mahmood Adam for looking seriously into the plight of Indians,'' he said in a statement.

Palanivel said he wanted the PSC to go beyond increasing Indian counter staff and look into raising the number of Indians in all sectors of the Government.

Mahmood was earlier reported to have said the move to appoint more Indian counter officers was part of a wider effort to get more non-Malays to serve in frontline positions.

This was to help Malaysians from all ethnic groups feel more at ease when dealing with ministries and departments.

Mahmood had also said the PSC, after boosting the number of Indian counter officers, would follow up by looking at measures to increase the number of Chinese counter staff at government agencies.

It was reported that Malays last year made up 80% of the 1.12 million applicants for posts in the public service, Indians 3% and Chinese 2%. The rest were from Sabah and Sarawak.

Recent efforts by the PSC to increase the number of non-Malays in the civil service had led to an increase in their numbers to 5.6% from 2% in the same period last year. - Star