KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 7 — The Malaysian United Democratic Alliance’s (Muda) Bukit Gasing candidate, VKK Rajasekaran Teagarajan, aims to bring back the glory days of Petaling Jaya.
The 44-year-old businessman said he will bring his area of expertise to move Bukit Gasing forward, together with technological advancement.
"We need to adapt to the current changing world. I do feel that Bukit Gasing has been left behind where the younger generation and the youth have no interest to come back and it's an ageing population.
"I believe that rather than just looking at technology as enable for businesses, we also want to do technology to enable elderly care and also facilitate their well-being in the last mile, so providing them all the necessary support to have a good conducive environment for them," he said.
Raja said Petaling Jaya provides the perfect space for startups and social enterprises to flourish and once again, making the city as a role model for others.
"I strongly feel that Petaling Jaya is the right place for our ecosystem, for youth businesses like startups, and for social enterprises. They will actually kind of flourish here. So we need to develop an ecosystem or a hub for a lot of them to be housed here.
"Give them mentoring, coaching, even funding to an extent. I don't believe in doing a roadshow once in a while to attract attention, but they need to be developed, handheld, and given the right amount of costs. We work with a lot of networks who actually want to do this, but they're looking for a venue, they're looking for space, and Petaling Jaya has ample of that.
"Once Upon a time in the 1970s, we were role models in many other parts of Malaysia. We need to bring back that level and identity, that this city can be a driving force,” he said.
Raja said his experience as a businessman can help him understand the Bukit Gasing communities on a deeper level.
"Being a third generation businessman, I know the values and principles that we practise in running our organisation, that have been set by my grandfather, my father and me. As a businessman, we always give back to society. When we grow the society, our business will actually flourish together.
"And that's a teaching that we always practise, is that you give a man a fish. He will survive for a day, but if you teach a man how to fish, he will survive for a lifetime. So those are the principles that we actually kind of encourage ourselves to do,” he said.
While technological advancement is needed, he admitted that the seniors are more likely to have difficulties adapting
"A very elderly gentleman came up to me and asked, ‘how do you use touch and go to pay for my parking online?’ And these are the learning curves that we want to actually teach people because as you know the local councils and the government agencies are trying to manoeuvre towards a more paperless system and I encourage that. But there also has to be some sort of a hand holding process when it comes to elderly,” he said.
Raja pointed out that Petaling Jaya was not "correctly developed” and that has an impact on the residents living there now.
"What we need is better urban planning for the city, especially Bukit Gasing where we are actually constantly having high traffic because there are a lot of major developments in high story apartments we've given out, but they have not given consideration or holistic approach on how infrastructure like the roads need to be supported. These are the things that I think the city councillors should look into,” he said.
With that, he suggested the return of city councillors needing to be elected instead of the current appointment system to give residents more voice in making decisions.
"Currently the city councillors are actually appointed. We want to bring back the third voice to the residents by electing their city councillors, enabling them to have more control to decide how they want their city to function,” he explained.
With Raja facing the popular incumbent of the Bukit Gasing seat, Rajiv Rishyakaran of Pakatan Harapan, he said the latter did a "decent amount of work” for the constituency.
"I think there's a decent amount of work being put in (by Rajiv) and but I think at this time we need to look at the future, we need to start looking at what is right for the Petaling Jaya residents.
"There are heavy criticisms that certain issues have been ignored, like the Petaling Jaya Dispersal Link (PJD Link) project, and I would like to seriously consider objecting to this on behalf of the residents itself and obviously bringing about certain changes that will actually help the community itself. We need to actually attract more investors into the city. The only way we can actually do that is by having a proper plan,” he said.
Raja will be in a three-cornered fight for the Bukit Gasing seat against Rajiv and Perikatan Nasional’s Nallan Dhanabalan comes August 12.
