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The Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources (MEWR) has agreed with most of the proposals in the Final Report submitted by the Hawker Centre Public Consultation Panel last month. It announced in October 2011, to much cheer from Singaporeans, that it will build 10 new hawker centres over the next decade.

Some of the proposals, such as the control on stall subletting, stall assignment and joint operations, have already been implemented in April 2012. The Government is looking into the best way to implement the other recommendations, such as:

• The management and operation of hawker centres by a social enterprise or cooperative on a not-for-profit basis. The Ministry welcomes proposals from non-profit organisations interested in working with the National Environment Agency to manage hawker centres.

• The setting up of an institution to promote, teach and transfer skills to set up a new generation of hawkers producing traditional and heritage hawker food.

• The feasibility of a single agency managing cleaning services for existing hawker centres to achieve consistent standards. For new centres that may be managed by an appointed managing agent, the managing agent will be required to ensure that high standards of cleaning services are provided.

• New hawker centres to showcase efficiency in the use and management of limited resources in terms of design, thus befitting building designs which incorporate the use of natural ventilation can be looked into to improve dining comfort.

At a recent event, Minister for Environment and Water Resources Vivian Balakrishnan also said,  "To make sure that there are enough Singaporeans who want to go into this business, I have to make sure that we send the message that there will be places available, there will be reasonable rentals." With many areas that can be worked on to uplift our hawking profession, he hopes that hawking will be an attractive and honourable profession for Singaporeans to move into, and especially for younger Singaporeans, in the years ahead.

For more details, read MEWR’s press release and participate in the REACH Discussion Forum ‘Government agrees with most Hawker Panel recommendations’.