The fine will be doubled to 10,000 Singapore dollars (6,153 US dollars) from 5,000 dollars currently under the Enlistment Act, Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean told parliament.

A rare public outcry erupted last year from Singaporeans who felt the punishment handed a Singapore-born pianist who evaded his National Service was too light.

Melvyn Tan, who took up British citizenship in 1978, was fined 3,000 dollars last April when he returned to the city-state. He had left Singapore at the age of 12 to study music in Britain and chose to stay on instead of returning home to do National Service in 1977.

"His sentence was similar to that imposed on other NS defaulters under similar circumstance," the defence minister said.

When Tan returned to Singapore he could no longer be forced to serve because he was over 40 years of age and no longer a Singaporean.

Teo said the case had highlighted "an inadequacy in penalties" for those who dodge the draft for so long that they become too old to serve.

Defaulters are currently liable to a jail term of up to three years plus a fine of up to 5,000 dollars, but since 1993 the courts have not jailed draft dodgers unless there have been aggravating circumstances, Teo said.

"However, from now on, MINDEF will ask the prosecutor to press for a jail sentence in serious cases of NS defaulters," including those who are in default for two years or more, he said.

The maximum jail sentence of three years should remain, he said.

Singapore's National Service system was introduced in 1967, two years after independence.

"As a small country with a small population, the only way we could build a force of sufficient size to defend ourselves was through conscription," Teo said.

Some 300,000 Singaporeans are currently on active National Service or on standby. They serve in the military, ambulance and fire services, or as police officers.

All able-bodied men in Singapore, both citizens and permanent residents, are eligible to be conscripted for two years of full-time active service once they turn 18.

Teo said that over the past 20 years, 185 National Service defaulters had been convicted in court for Enlistment Act offences. Of those, 43 were jailed, 140 were fined and two others punished in connection with other offences.

Most of the defaulters subsequently enlisted or are awaiting enlistment but he said two of them defaulted again.

The wealthy city-state has one of the most modern armed forces in Southeast Asia.

In the fiscal year to March 2006, its defence budget was 9.26 billion Singapore dollars, up 7.4 percent from a year earlier and accounting for almost a third of the national budget.

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