Problem overview:

     Awareness and visions: Another vision of the powerful and dynamic Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew to improve the aesthetic value of Singapore, this time focusing on cleaning the rivers.

     Policies and measures: Discrete policy measures were taken to relocate squatter communities away from the riverbank so that household garbage will no longer be dumped into the river.

Background:

      Political leadership can make all the difference

      The cleaning-up of the Singapore River and Kallang Basin demonstrates a lesson in environmental restoration. The project, which was started in 1977, took ten years to complete. The clean up transformed a river, which was filth and stench and heavily polluted to one where today aquatic life is thriving.

      The Singapore River and Kallang Basin symbolize the development of Singapore from a trading and business centre to one of rapid urbanization and an expanding trade. In the 1960s to 1980s, as trading and business activities expanded around the River and Kallang Basin uncontrolled discharge of all types of waste and wastewater flowed into the River and Basin causing them to be highly polluted. The sources of water pollution into the River and Basin included pig wastes from pig and duck farms, unsewered premises, street hawkers, riverine activities, vegetable wholesale activities and others.

      On February 27, 1977, at the opening of the Upper Pierce Reservoir, the then Prime Minister, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew said in his speech: "It should be a way of life to keep the water clean. To keep every stream, culvert and rivulet, free from pollution. The Ministry of the Environment should make it a target: in ten years let us have fishing in the Singapore River and Kallang River. It can be done."

      By October 1977, plans were put up and actions were taken to clean up the Singapore River and Kallang Basin. The main objective of the effort was to cleanse the rivers connecting to the Kallang Basin and the Singapore River so that aquatic life could return to the rivers. There was massive housing development, more than 26,000 families living in unsewered premises and 2,800 backyard and cottage industries were resettled. Other measures taken in the clean up the river programme were resiting of street hawkers to food centres, phasing out of polluting activities and resettlement of squatters, industrial workshops, backyard trades, industries and farmers,

      To keep the rivers clean, a committee comprising various government ministries and statutory boards, namely, the Primary Production Department, Housing Development Board, Jurong Town Corporation, Urban Development Authority, Sewerage Department, Hawkers Department, Drainage Department, Environmental Health and Parks and Recreation Department was set up to plan, coordinate and implement programmes to prevent pollution to the rivers. One main programme is the adoption of engineering measures to minimise pollution of the rivers. These measures include:

• Prevention of litter entry by covering of drains in litter-prone areas with slabs.
  
  
• Installation of vertical gratings at selected outlet drains leading to main canals and rivers.
  
  
• Installation of floatbooms across rivers and canals.

      Today, the River and Basin are used for recreational purposes such as boating, fishing and river cruise, adding to a higher quality of life for Singaporeans. The price of land around these areas has been enhanced, adding to economic and social development. There are now recreational businesses like restaurants along the riverfront.

      The Government's Singapore River Development Plan is to transform the river into a gathering place for recreational and cultural activities by the 21st century. This is materializing as more is being done to make the waterfront more aesthetic against a backdrop of many skyscrapers of the Central Business District (CBD), a reflection of modern urban Singapore.