DIGGINGS OF ROADS (Expenditure)

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

The following Question stood in the name of Mr Chiam See Tong -

To ask the Acting Minister for National Development (a) why there were so many repetitive diggings of roads all over Singapore by the Public Works Department and other statutory boards from 1989 to 1993; and (b) how much was spent on those road diggings by the PWD in each of those years.

Dr Ho Tat Kin (Toa Payoh GRC): Question No. 1, Sir.

The Acting Minister for National Development (Mr Lim Hng Kiang): Mr Speaker, Sir, road openings are carried out by the various services departments, such as PUB, Telecom and the Sewerage Department to lay their services.

The PWD regulates and coordinates the road opening activities of these services departments. The Road Opening Coordination Committee (ROCC), chaired by PWD, meets monthly to coordinate all road openings. This Committee comprises members from various authorities, such as the Traffic Police, PUB, Telecom, Environment and MRTC.

Repeated road diggings are sometimes unavoidable. Firstly, many services cannot be laid close to one another. For example, a sewer line cannot be laid next to a water main. Similarly, an electrical cable cannot be laid next to a gas line. Secondly, the total closure of a road or the closure of many traffic lanes along a road is not permitted, to minimise inconvenience to road users. Hence, the services departments are not allowed to carry out more than one trench opening along a road at any one time to minimise road congestion. The ROCC coordinates their work programmes so that only one road opening takes place at any one time. This may have given the public the misconception of repeated road openings along the same road.

The PWD does not have the cost incurred by the various services departments on road openings.