Selangor now has 391 non-Muslim places of worship with land ownership says state executive councillor Xavier Jayakumar.
He said of the eight districts in Selangor, Klang and Kuala Langat have the highest number of gazetted places of worship, with 235 and 58 respectively.
He was replying to a question by Ng Suee Lim (DAP Sekinchan) on the issue at the Selangor assembly meeting yesterday.
“Since Pakatan took over the administration in 2008, we have approved 86 non-muslim places of worship comprising of 42 Hindu temples, 26 Chinese temples, 13 churches and five gurdwaras,”
Xavier said that typically an application takes six to 12 months to process. He attributed delays to incomplete documentation, overlapping applications, staff shortage as well as failure to clear land premiums before obtaining ownership.
He said the applicants must have registered as an organisation, undertaken a traffic study and gotten community consent when filing in their application.
“For non-Muslim places of worship with close proximity to Muslim residencies, there must be a 50m buffer distance separating them.”
Meanwhile Xavier also said the state would in future gazette non-Muslim places of worship as institutional land.
“We will no longer issue land title then,” he said, as the land would then be under the purview and guardianship of the state secretary.
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