Centralised Cleaning Facilities at Each Hawker Center to Increase Hygiene Standards and Reduce Fire Hazards.

Mr Christopher de Souza asked the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment whether the Government can introduce centralised cleaning facilities at each hawker center to increase hygiene standards and reduce fire hazards.

The National Environment Agency (NEA) has introduced centralised dishwashing, together with the use of common crockery and automated tray return systems, at five existing hawker centres under the Productive Hawker Centres (PHC) programme. We are progressively expanding the PHC programme to more existing centres. All new hawker centres will also have centralised dishwashing. These centralised cleaning facilities enhance productivity, relieve the hawkers from the chores of dishwashing, and help to improve hygiene standards. But they do not significantly reduce fire hazards, as fires in hawker centres are mostly caused by unattended cooking.

As we introduce centralised dishwashing to more centres, we have to address challenges such as space constraints and consider stallholders' receptivity to centralised dishwashing services. NEA has been working closely with the respective Hawkers' Associations and stallholders to roll out the PHC programme, and will prioritise centres with available space, high business volume and supportive stakeholders. To help stallholders transit to centralised dishwashing services, the PHC programme provides four years of funding support of up to 70% of the centralised dishwashing fees for stallholders in existing hawker centres, and two years of funding support of up to 50% for new hawker centres.