Rural Sector To Remain Main Agenda Of Govt Developmet - DPM

SELAMA (Perak, Malaysia), July 12 (Bernama) -- The rural sector will remain the main agenda of government development while new plans will be implemented for the people to enjoy a better life, Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said on Thursday. He said development of the rural sector had undergone an evolution over the past 55 years and it was being continuously developed through various government efforts. "A section of the rural community requires government support to live comfortably because dependence on one economic source (agriculture) alone is not enough to lift their economic standard," he said when opening the Sungai Siputeh Mini-RTC (Rural Transformation Centre), here. Improvement of the rural sector had occurred in terms of exploitation of economic resources, pattern of community life, income, standard of health and education of children up to tertiary level, he said. Muhyiddin said the peace and prosperity as well as thriving economy of the country had to be improved and maintained because not many countries of the world were in the blessed situation that Malaysia was. He said the government always gave special focus to rural development, particularly in terms of allocation of funds for development programmes, and added that the government had disbursed RM26 billion between 2011 and 2013 for development of the rural community. "The programmes hitherto implemented and to be carried out show that the government has never forgotten the rural population. On a national level, in 2011, under the National Key Result Area, the government built and upgraded 1,013 kilometres of rural road, which had a positive impact on 425,377 people. "Besides the good network of roads, an additional 73,227 houses were supplied with clean water that benefited 366,135 people. Electricity supply projects benefited 27,004 houses while 14,365 houses were built or renovated for the poor," he said. Muhyiddin said that for this year, the government targeted to construct 1,349.90 kilometres of rural road, supply water and electricity to 201,192 and 39,442 houses, respectively, and build and renovate 14,565 houses in the rural areas. He said that under the Ninth Malaysia Plan (2006-2010), Perak was allocated RM1.32 billion for programmes which covered the development of infrastructure, human capital, and the economic and social sectors, and programmes to raise the income of the rural people. The development projects in Perak were being continued under the 10th Malaysia Plan (2011-2015), with an allocation of RM765 million for the 2011-2012 period, he added. (US$1=RM3.18) -- BERNAMA