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Now wheelchair-bound, the 82-year-old can only leave her 10th-storey Housing Board flat in Bishan when one of her grandchildren is there to help her.

Said grandaughter Melissa Tay, 17: 'I carry her on my back. It would be more convenient if there were a lift on our floor.'

 

She may get her wish. Her block, 145, in Bishan Street 11, has been earmarked for an upgrade under Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC's five-year renewal plan.

 

Like Miss Tay, many residents in older HDB blocks where the lifts do not stop at all floors have been asking: 'When will our block get a lift upgrade?'

 

It is the hottest question these days during house visits, walkabouts and block parties, 11 MPs told The Straits Times.

 

At the weekend, MPs in Holland-Bukit Panjang and Sembawang GRCs spoke about their lift upgrading plans; Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong noted that residents in opposition wards Hougang and Potong Pasir want it too.

 

About 2,500 of the 9,000 HDB blocks in Singapore, which were built more than 16 years ago, do not have lifts that stop at every floor.

 

Former HDB chief architect Tony Tan, who was with the board from 1968 to 2003, says it was too costly to have lifts stopping at every floor in the early years, when the more urgent need was to house the masses in affordable flats.

 

But the designers had an eye on the future, he says. The blocks were built with a lift shaft which could, by knocking out the wall at each level, allow the lift to stop at every floor.

 

HDB took the decision to build flats with lifts stopping at every floor after 1988, to cater to the needs of the aged. Another pressing concern: How to prevent older estates from becoming derelict ghettos should residents move away to newer and better neighbourhoods.

 

So, from 1989, some blocks over 17 years old were upgraded via the Main Upgrading Programme. Extra space was added to flats, covered linkways and other frills were built, and the existing lift shaft was used to install lifts which stopped at every floor.

Four years later, the Interim Upgrading Programme saw to it that blocks aged 10 to 17 years had their exteriors and surroundings improved.

 

In the 1997 general election, the People's Action Party government made it clear that those who supported the party at the polls would be upgraded first.

 

In its latest move, the Government has announced an accelerated $5 billion-plus Lift Upgrading Programme, which aims to have lifts stopping at every floor of HDB blocks by 2014, in view of the rapidly ageing population.

 

In 1993, 5.7 per cent (136,652) of HDB residents were aged 65 and above; in 2003, it was 7.6 per cent (217,568). The figure is expected to more than double to 18.1 per cent by 2030.

 

MP Teo Ho Pin recalls that, in a visit to his Bukit Panjang ward two years ago, he was shocked to find five wheelchair-bound, elderly residents in just one HDB block.

'They said: 'Please, it's important that we get the lifts quickly. If not, by the time you do it, we may be gone.' '

 

Residents clearly want the new lifts: Up to last month, 821 out of 851 HDB blocks polled for lift upgrades had garnered the required 75 per cent of votes needed from residents to proceed.

 

Interest in the main upgrading programme, though, seems to have waned in some quarters. A smaller number of four- and five-room flat owners voted for the extra space - from three out of 17 blocks in the financial year 2000, to one out of 17 blocks two years later.

 

Some residents prefer to be moved en-bloc to new and better flats. Others do not want to incur the expenses.

 

Although HDB subsidises at least 75 per cent of upgrading costs, the main upgrading programme can cost a household between $2,000 and about $30,000, while lift upgrading is capped at $3,000 per household. A new way to install lifts is expected to cut costs by up to 20 per cent.

 

HDB itself is also focusing on lift and interim upgrading. With the same budget, this means picking fewer precincts for the more costly main upgrading programme - six in financial year 2005, compared to 10 in that of 2002 - and offering extra space only for three-room flats. Lifts are a key item in the multi-million dollar, five-year estate renewal plans announced in recent months in the run-up to the general election.

 

Lift upgrading makes up 15 per cent to over half of the value of the GRCs' plans.

In Aljunied, it is $65 million; Holland-Bukit Panjang, $116.2 million; Tanjong Pagar, $145 million; Hong Kah, about $150 million; Jurong, $200 million;, East Coast, $200 million; Tampines, $200 million; Marine Parade, $241 million; and Sembawang, $336 million.

 

Lift upgrading is so coveted that MPs have to explain to residents why their blocks will be upgraded later than others.

 

As Dr Teo notes: 'Everybody wants it by yesterday.'

As grassroots advisers, MPs recommend to the authorities which of their precincts should be upgraded first. Older flats with more elderly people are top priority.

 

The complexity of installing a lift matters too. Some blocks require only one extra lift shaft. Those without a common corridor need more.

 

How the blocks are arranged is another factor. An isolated block that needs a lift upgrade may have to wait for the area to be upgraded under the interim programme to avoid inconvenience to other blocks.

 

Lift upgrading is a trump card in Hougang and Potong Pasir. PAP candidates look set to say they will lobby for it. Opposition MPs cry foul that they were not allowed to use their sinking fund to pay for lifts that stop at every floor over the past few years. A change to the law last August, however, permits them to use 10 per cent of the fund for lift upgrading if the cost to each flat does not exceed $5,000.

 

Mrs Gurdeep Singh, 51, who lives in Potong Pasir, does not think residents will be denied lift upgrading for not voting for the PAP.

 

The lift in the block where she lives, on the 17th-floor, stops at the 16th. It is inconvenient for her, as her left foot has been amputated.

 

But she said: 'We'll get upgrading sooner or later. After all, we're citizens of Singapore and everybody needs a lift.'