Bukit Brown Cemetery

Bukit Brown Cemetery, The Urban Development Authority (URA) and Land Transport Authority (LTA) will work with all parties to document the graves in the cemetery of Bukit Brown.

Minister of State for National Development Tan Chuan-Jin said the government is aware of the rich heritage of Bukit Brown and its links with the history of Singapore.

“We tried to explore various possibilities of the road, but there is no easy options. Once the decision was taken on the road, they began to discuss with key stakeholders.

“Our goal is to capture properly the history and memories of the graves affected and to do this before the planned road development begins,” he said.

There are plans for a dual four-lane highway to be built from early 2013 to link motorists traveling between Thomson Road, Adam and Pan-Island Expressway.

This is part of the development plans for the area of ??Bukit Brown, The New Paper on Monday.

It is estimated that the new road affects about 5 percent of the more than 100,000 graves currently located at Bukit Brown cemetery.

Mr. Tan was speaking at a meeting with Hokkien Huay Kuan Singapore, Peranakan Association of Singapore, Singapore Heritage Society, academics and experts in the grave.

According to a statement jointly issued by URA and LTA, a framework to guide the documentation of these pits to capture the history and heritage of the graves affected by the new road.

An Advisory Board composed of representatives of key stakeholder groups and representatives of key government agencies such as URA, LTA and the National Heritage Council to guide and advise on the documentation process.

A working committee led by Dr. Hui Yew Foong-Member and Coordinator of the Regional Studies Program, Social and Cultural Rights at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, will conduct the work of actual documentation.

The documentation does not only include the tombs, but also social history, memories and rituals associated with burial and exhumation process.