Tengah, Singapore

Tengah
Name transcription(s)
• Chinese	登珈
• Malay	Tengah
• Tamil	தெங்கா
Country	Singapore

Tengah is an area north of Jurong and west of Bukit Batok, slightly bigger than Jurong West. It is a former military restricted area and it is currently reserved for future housing developments and to be built by 2019. At present, there are three HDB launches, Jurong North Valley, Tengah Arcadia and Tengah Happie.

The Tengah West will be developed into Jurong Innovation District, which is a newer industrial park compared to Jurong Industrial Estate.

History

Before urbanization took place, Tengah was known as 'Hong Kah', a Chinese kampong just slightly north off present-day Jurong Spring and Jurong Green.

In the 1980s, under the government's resettlement plan, villagers of Hong Kah were shifted to nearby towns newly built by the government, particularly into today's Jurong Green, Jurong Spring and Bukit Batok areas. Schools were shifted elsewhere and one example is Xingnan Primary School, which used to operate at a temple along 'Hong Kah Road' at the village. The HDB estates of Jurong Green and Jurong Spring are given the name 'Hong Kah', probably meaning that most of the villagers resettled there. When the village was cleared, the PIE and KJE projects started in the area and that led to the creation of 'Jurong West Avenue 2' and the expressway which brought about the rise of Jurong West New Town and Choa Chu Kang New Town. The western part became inaccessible to the public first in 1996 and was used by the military for training activities (which is west of Jurong Road Track 22), followed by the eastern part of Hong Kah (which is east of Jurong Road Track 22) in 2005. Also, it has been renamed to Tengah, after choosing the good name than the early iterations of Hong Kah or Jurong North.

Military use

The bigger part of the former Hong Kah Village was an SAF military training area until 10 November 2015. The military training around the area has since been shifted to Ama Keng Road. Massive construction and earthworks subsequently began in October 2015.