Tackling income inequality in Malaysia

A trader packs vegetables for a customer in Johor Baru. Household income for the poor is estimated to hit RM2,007 last year, with a target of RM2,3 00 by 2015.

CHANDRASEKARAN Ramaiah fell into hardship when he suffered a stroke some years ago. Now partially recovered, he runs a food kiosk in Melaka after having secured help under the Azam Tani programme.

When we met last month, he told me his income has doubled to RM100 per day. Chandra is one of 145,630 households that have benefitted from the Low Income Household (LIH) National Key Results Area (NKRA) between 2011 and 2013.