Home, sweet home, in Felda scheme

BENTONG: Home, sweet home! Firdaus Roshidin Mohd Mohidin, 39, describes his home as just that.
The Felda second-generation settler is proud of his house at Felda Mempaga 1, the second Felda settlement opened in the country after Felda Lurah Bilut.
He is glad to have purchased a house built under the 'Perumahan Warga Felda' programme initiated by the government to cater to the rising need for housing by Felda second-generation settlers.
In 2004, he moved into the house and became his father's neighbour.
Housing was not an issue in Felda schemes from the time the first settlement was established in Lurah Bilut in 1958 until Felda stopped taking in settlers in 1990.
It became an issue only after the original families expanded and the children began to have their own families. That's when the government stepped in with its housing initiative.
"Once we got married and started a family, it is not proper to continue to live with our parents," Firdaus Roshidin, the eldest of seven siblings, told Bernama.
Firdaus Roshidin, who works as a Kemas (Community Development) supervisor in the Sabai state constituency, appreciated the never-ending attention given by the government to the Felda community and applauded its commitment to building more houses, not only for the second generation but also the third generation of Felda settlers.
He now lives with his wife and children in the comfort of their three-bedroom terrace house in the Felda settlement, bought at just RM35,000.
Early last month, a new model of the Felda second-generation settlers housing programme was launched by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak to ensure that the second-generation settlers could afford to own houses.
"The problem is a majority of these people do not have a steady job with a salary statement, which makes securing a loan difficult," he said.
Najib had announced in the GE14 Barisan Nasional election manifesto that the government would construct more houses in Felda schemes, especially for the second- and third-generation settlers, apart from upgrading 422km of road in the schemes.
Chief of the Felda Mempaga 1 settlers, Mohd Mohidin Osman, 61, said 190 units of houses under the 'Perumahan Warga Felda' programme were fully occupied while 210 units under a new programme – 'Rumah Mesra Rakyat Felda' – were set to be sold tor the second-generation settlers in the scheme.
"The 'Rumah Mesra Rakyat Felda' houses are being built through our collaboration with SPNB (Syarikat Perumahan Negara Berhad), with the cost of a house at RM75,000. Those who get these houses will pay only RM55,000. The site has been surveyed and only the land remains to be sub-divided," he said, adding that in Felda Mempaga 1 alone there were about 2,000 second-generation settlers.
He admitted that although the government had done much to cater to the housing needs of the next generation of settlers, there was still an insufficient number of housing units. However, he believed that more initiatives were in the government pipeline.
"At the Settlers Day event, the government announced the approval for building an additional house in every plot of land. We have also been asked to look for idle land in the scheme for the construction of houses," he said. — Bernama