KUALA LUMPUR Oct 25 — Lembah Pantai MP Fahmi Fadzil said he is working with Universiti Malaya (UM) and the Malaysia Architect Association (PAM) to develop plans on micro housing for the institution of higher learning’s students.
He said the concept could help provide better suitable and more accommodations for students.
“There will be several phases. For example, we could do adaptive reuse of the old bungalows and buildings owned by the UM for micro housing as the immediate concerns are to provide more accommodations for the students.
“In the future, we are also looking whether to upgrade the old residential college or build a new one.
“We will come out with a masterplan for it soon,” he told reporters at the UM’s chancellery hall after PKR president Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s speech here last night.
Fahmi also handed over RM 270,000 from the “Mesra Rakyat Programme” to help with immediate student accommodation problems at the university.
“UM will upgrade six bungalows in Jalan 16, nearby the Zaaba 9th Residential College, to provide 144 accommodations to the students,” he said.
Anwar presented the mock cheque to UM vice chancellor Datuk Abdul Rahim Hashim after his two-hour talk on poverty.
He also took questions from the attending students and appeared jovial throughout.
Anwar, who graduated from UM in 1971, regaled them about his prison days, his dream to help Malaysian people as well as taking a trip down memory lane when he had been a student there.
“I was a handful then. People always told me that I spent 30 minutes at the Library but two hours at the Speaker’s Corner,” he said when reminiscing of his student activist days when he had been president of the UM Malay Language Society and National Union of Malaysian Muslim Students.
