HAWKERS (Resiting of and licences for)

Mr Teo Chong Tee asked the Minister for Law, the Environment and Science and Technology (a) how many more licensed street hawkers are presently awaiting to be resited in markets and hawker centres; (b) when the resiting exercise is expected to be completed; (c) whether the itinerant licensed hawkers will be given the opportunity, if they so request, to be settled in a permanent market or hawker centre; (d) whether the Minister will consider relaxing the rules governing the eligibility for issue of now hawker licences in the future: and (e) how many bona fide farmers affected by resettlement have been offered hawker licences to date.

The Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment (Mr Chor Yeok Eng) (for the Minister for Law, the Environment and Science and Technology): ( In Mandarin): Mr Speaker, Sir, there are 9,642 licensed street hawkers who need to be resited into markets and hawker centres.

There are plans to resite 5,370 street hawkers into new markets and hawker centres by 1981. The street hawkers will have to take up stalls in markets/hawker centres which will be mostly built in new housing estates. The remaining street hawkers will be resited later depending on the availability of sites and funds.

There are 528 licensed itinerant hawkers in Singapore comprising 400 ice-cream vendors, 106 bread hawkers and 23 pre-cooked food and sundry goods hawkers. It is already the policy of the Government to consider requests favourably from licensed itinerant hawkers for stalls in markets/hawker centres.

Since 1976, out of 531 resettlement cases, 19 were bona fide farmers and were given stalls in markets/hawker centres.

The existing hawker licensing policy has already been relaxed to issue licences to hardship cases. Since 1976, new hawker licences have been issued to 521 hardship cases. It will not be practical or advisable to liberalise the hawker licensing policy further until most of the 9,642 licensed street hawkers are resited into premises. Otherwise we will find it impossible to tackle the present hawker problem.