By Norrasyidah Arshad
SHAH ALAM, Aug 19 — A total of RM1.8 million has been allocated this year to temple management bodies in Selangor for repairing religious houses and carrying out religious activities by the non-Muslim communities.
Special Committee for Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Taoism (Limas) co-chairman V Ganabatirau said the assistance would be distributed in stages until the end of the year.
“Today, a total of 71 representatives from temples were the first group to receive aid from the state government, costing RM670,000.
“Depending on their needs, each qualified temple would get between RM3,000 and RM10,000 for matters like religious activities,” he said after the handover ceremony at the Selangor Economic Action Council (MTES) operations room.
On May 14, Dato’ Teng Chang Khim, who chairs the Limas committee, said some RM69.5 million has been allocated by the state administration to the non-Islamic associations in the state from 2099 until 2022.
He said that the allocation had been disbursed based on the number of primary religious houses in Selangor, where the population data of the believers were obtained from the Department of Statistics Malaysia.
Based on the data at hand, the percentage of distributions to Buddhist, Taoist and other religious associations totals 60.47 per cent, Hindu associations at 28.75 per cent, Christian associations at 9.42 per cent and 1.36 per cent for the Sikh associations.
Meanwhile, Ganabatirau advised temple management groups to get in touch with Limas if they are facing issues with the financial assistance application procedure.
He said that this year saw fewer applications submitted than the year before as a result of the switch to online applications.
“Among other issues, they are faced with technological limitations. So we ask them to get in touch with us or visit the office.
“The staff will assist them in filling out the application so that it is complete and qualifies for assistance. A complete application is necessary to avoid problems later on,” he said.
Limas launched the online Selangor Limas Financial Support System on March 1 to facilitate the application for financial aid by non-Islamic religious associations in the state.
The system was developed to make it easy for non-Islamic associations to apply for financial support by doing it online.
