Build modern cafeterias, not hawker centres, in Singapore

By 2027, Singapore will have 20 new hawker centres. However, society should drop its dated image of hawker centres to raise the profile of the hawker workforce. (“Ten more hawker centres to be built in next 12 years”; March 12)

If society continues to hold hawkers in low regard, we will fail to embrace them in our supposedly inclusive society.

It is time we appreciate their culinary skills, raise their status and transform their working environment to remove the stigma attached.

To maintain this social institution, the Government must consider the hawker industry as an essential social service, part and parcel of our unique social fabric, and should allocate sufficient resources to build a strong, 21st-century Singaporean food culture.

A hard-working labour force in a vibrant metropolitan society deserves decent, inexpensive and healthy meals in air-conditioned, brightly lit and clean surroundings. In line with other infrastructure development, the nation should realise such facilities to improve our lifestyle.

Hence, all hawker centres should be consolidated under the sole control of the National Environment Agency (NEA), which could then redevelop them into cafeterias befitting the modern Singaporean lifestyle. These need not be expensive, with simple furnishings and high ceilings.

In the process, the NEA should also implement proactive measures to charge stall rentals at highly subsidised rates, so as to nurture a new generation of hawkers who cook healthy, affordable food.

High hygiene standards could be fostered by offering adequate washbasins and toilets, as well as enhanced public education.

Society must progress by attracting our young to work in respectable cafeterias and earn decent wages to support their families.

Air-conditioned cafeterias can and should be a Singaporean lifestyle for the next 50 years. As Hippocrates said: “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”