KAPIT: Some 2,000 units of Astro decorders and telivison sets will be distributed to longhouses in the interior areas of the state this year.
Deputy Information, Communication and Culture Minister Datuk Joseph Salang Gandum said the respective district offices would identify the recipients.
“Each longhouse will get one unit which will be placed under the longhouse chief’s care.
“The units will be distributed after the state election,” he said after visiting Rh. Kilau, one of the five longhouses in Sungai Tunoh settlement areas in the interior of Baleh, about one-day journey by longboat and 4-wheel drive from here.
Salang who flew in to the area added the longhouses must be in those areas where the people could not get the Radio Television Malaysia or the TV 3 television broadcast.
He said the gesture was part of the government’s programme to help rural folks not only to be better informed but informed on real time on all happenings all over the country and even the world.
Earlier when visiting Rh. Kubu anak Sandom in Nanga Tada near Sibu, he said the government under the current Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak was most sympathetic to the plight of all the nation’s rural communities.
“For this reason, he deserves all our support in order to allow him to do more,” he said.
On the request for more kampung Wi-Fi projects, Salang said he would bring the matter to the attention of the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC).
Information, Communication and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Utama Dr Rais Yatim, during the launching of the Nanga Machan Wi-Fi village project in Kanowit on Monday, had said the government planned to set up 600 such villages throughout the state within the next one year. – Bernama