PUTRAJAYA, June 12 — Human Resources minister M. Kulasegaran has urged Hindu temples nationwide to do their part for society by donating to the Tabung Harapan Malaysia Fund.

"Generally in the last decade, the government was the sole authority to distribute money to temples, but now I am very happy that temples are playing their role in society by being concerned of the problems faced by the country," he said today.

According to Kulasegaran, the official figure collected by Tabung Harapan as of 9.30am today was at least RM60million compared to RM56,662,086.58 collected as of 3pm yesterday.

Kulasegaran said history have shown that many other countries have called upon their people to help them during times of crisis as noted in South Korea during 1998.

"Nearly 3.5 million people participated in the campaign launched to pay off an international Monetary Fund loan of about US$58 billion (RM231.4 billion).

"In as little as two months, gold valued at US$2.2 billion were collected and delivered which served as a rallying point for the nation to pay off the entire loan in 2001," he said.

He said Malaysians can be proud that they are showing immense patriotism for the country by donating to help pay off its debts.