Visiting Hamlet 2, Nam Anh Commune on a cool Autumn morning, the first impression is the spacious, clean rural concrete roads, especially the road shaded by Bauhinia flowers, surrounding large ponds likened to "regulating lakes" bringing a cool, peaceful landscape.
Taking us on a tour around the hamlet, Party cell secretary and hamlet chief Tran Van Chau (born in 1974) shared with a proud voice: “Compared to when I started working as a hamlet cadre in 2016, the landscape and roads of the hamlet have completely changed. Previously, there were dirt roads, gravel roads or concrete roads that were degraded, and when it rained and flooded, they were very dirty. But now, the roads of hamlet 2 are 100% concreted, and 73% of the ditch systems have covers.”
Hamlet 2 has 235 households, 998 people, the people mainly do agriculture combined with services or work as factory workers. When the superiors had a policy of supporting cement, the Party Committee and the Hamlet Executive Committee held a meeting to clear the ideology among the Party members, with the motto "Party members go first, the country follows".
After that, the hamlet held a meeting with the group leaders and deputy group leaders to propagate and thoroughly create unity within this team, so that the self-governing groups could meet and discuss, give opinions, and the hamlet organized a meeting to agree on the implementation plan as well as collect funds. For households that are still hesitant and have not yet reached an agreement, it is necessary to persevere in propaganda and mobilization work.
“If we can’t meet them at home, we wait for them to go to the fields to approach them and propagate to help them understand that this is a priority policy of the superiors for the commune and hamlet, so the people must take advantage of it. If we don’t do it, we will be assigned to another unit, missing the opportunity to “put on a new coat” to make the village roads more beautiful and airy. Moreover, building a new road will make it convenient for people to travel, work, and produce, and will be spacious and airy… After receiving the consensus of the people, the Party Committee, the Command Committee, and the Hamlet Front Work Committee registered to receive cement with the commune and implemented it according to the motto of openness and transparency: “people know, people discuss, people do, people check, people benefit” – Party cell Secretary and Hamlet Chief Tran Van Chau said.
It is known that from 2021 to now, the hamlet has mobilized 673 million VND to build the road. During the implementation process, some households voluntarily donated land and moved back to widen the road, such as the household of Mrs. Nguyen Thi Tu (66 years old) who donated 70m2adjacent to the main road of the commune (land price 10 million VND/m2)2). Talking to us, Mrs. Tu simply shared: “I know that “every inch of land is gold”, but a beautiful village and a beautiful neighborhood also means a beautiful home, so when the commune and the neighborhood had a policy to upgrade the road and build a new model rural area, I discussed with my three sons to move the fence back, creating conditions to ensure the road is clear and my children all agreed. Up to now, not only me but everyone realizes that the policy to expand and upgrade the road is completely correct”.
Recently, Hamlet 2 is also one of the hamlets in the outer area (Lang Nha) chosen by Nam Anh commune to develop a 600m long model road. On average, each household contributes 440,000 VND, the largest household contributes about 6 million VND, the household that combines the construction of a pond embankment like Mr. Ho Viet Tu has a cost of up to 12-13 million VND. In addition, previously, the ponds in the area were divided into small areas for contractors to raise fish for breeding and meat, now the commune and hamlet have promoted and mobilized families like Nguyen Van Hong, Tran Van Thang... to break small ponds into large ponds to beautify the landscape and ensure environmental protection. Now, every early morning or late afternoon, people and children gather on the clean, shady road along the pond to enjoy the cool air, chat happily, and strengthen the village and neighborhood relationship.
Next to Hamlet 2, Hamlet 3 is also the first unit to implement the campaign of "catching broken roads, carrying new roads" with a length of about 300m. In addition, the roads and paths in the hamlet are also basically concreted. Mr. Ho Viet Canh (66 years old), Secretary of the Party Cell of Hamlet 3, said: The hamlet was originally merged from 2 units (Hamlets 4 and 3) with 1,784 people, 375 households. The people are mainly farmers, the Party Cell has 34 members. Although there are still many difficulties, the policy of upgrading rural roads is basically agreed by the people. Initially, there were also households that did not really agree, but they did not back down because they found it difficult. The Party Cell and the Hamlet Command coordinated with the Front's working committee to carry out propaganda and mobilization work, explaining to the people clearly and agreeing to implement the motto "The State and the people work together".
During the recent road construction, each person contributed 470,000 VND, households along the pond contributed 1 million VND, the cement was provided by the State, and when the road was completed, everyone was excited to see the clean and beautiful scenery. Sharing the secret of "skillful mass mobilization", the secretary with more than 30 years of experience working in villages and hamlets said: There is no big secret other than "taking the people as the root" and the pioneering role of cadres and party members from small to large matters. For example, when launching the construction of covered ditches or the erection of uniform flagpoles, the families of cadres and party members must set an example first so that the whole village can follow.
“Currently, the hamlet is preparing to start rebuilding the cultural house to ensure the living needs of the people after the merger. The project has a total value of 2.5 billion VND, of which the district budget supports 1 billion VND, the rest is from the commune and hamlet, but “it is difficult enough for the people to do it”, even these “newly painted” roads come from the people’s strength and heart. In 2021, the hamlet built 1,790m of class A roads, in the first 6 months of 2022, it built an additional 950m…”, Party cell secretary Ho Viet Canh expressed.
From the success of the movement "catch broken roads, carry new roads" in hamlets 2 and 3, currently hamlets 4, 7 and some other hamlets of Nam Anh commune have also started to implement phase 2 of this campaign.
Identifying the expansion of roads as a breakthrough to create a premise for building a new model rural area, from the beginning of 2021, Nam Anh commune took a step forward, implementing a campaign to clear traffic safety corridors to create clear roads and open sidewalks. By the beginning of 2022, the locality had built a specific roadmap, organized meetings of Party cells, and Front working committees of hamlets to propagate, mobilize and hold meetings with people, collect opinions to implement the campaign "catch broken roads, carry new roads".
According to Mr. Tran Quoc Khanh - Secretary of the Party Committee of Nam Anh commune: Immediately after the province and district issued the policy of supporting cement for rural traffic construction, the Standing Committee of the Party Committee met to discuss and agree on the policy of mobilizing people to receive cement for road construction. After that, the Party Committee of the commune continued to meet and reached a high consensus within the commune Party Committee, with the idea that no matter how difficult it was, it had to be implemented. Next, the Steering Committee for New Rural Construction met with the steering groups in the hamlets to announce the policy, provide guidance on how to propagate, mobilize, and conduct field surveys for the comrades who are members of the steering committee and the steering groups.
The commune also organized an expanded meeting of the Party Committee, the People's Committee of the commune, organizations and unions to propagate the policy of the province, district and commune on supporting cement and joining hands with the people to build rural traffic. At the same time, assigned the Party Committee, the Hamlet Command Committee, the Front Working Committee of the hamlets to survey damaged and degraded road sections that need investment and upgrading, synthesize, submit to ask for people's opinions, and mobilize people to contribute funds to join hands in construction.
After receiving people's opinions, the Commune Steering Committee sent delegations to coordinate with steering groups to the roads to inspect the actual situation of measuring the length and width in detail and report to the officers in charge of building the new rural areas, synthesize and report to the Party Committee and the commune government to review and evaluate the actual situation, and based on the allocated cement source, allocate reasonable resources to build and upgrade necessary road sections first, and do the unnecessary sections later.
To create consensus for the implementation of the campaign "catch broken roads, carry new roads", the Commune Steering Committee decided to choose the outer areas including hamlet 1 (200m), hamlet 2 (600m) and hamlet 3 (300m) to make model roads. However, according to Vice Chairman of Nam Anh Commune People's Committee Nguyen Thuc Quang, at first only 30% of the people agreed. Through understanding and understanding their thoughts, there were many conflicting opinions, some said that all people should contribute equally, others said that the road passes through each house, each house should contribute... Therefore, the commune requires cadres to clearly understand the material and spiritual life, thoughts and aspirations of the people in order to have appropriate propaganda and mobilization methods for each hamlet and each household. At the same time, the Party Committee arranges flexible pilot leaders, suitable to the intellectual characteristics and difficulty of each hamlet, when necessary, changing and adding pilot leaders to hamlet units to focus on directing the completion of the goals. For example, in hamlet 1, the people did not want to build a high-speed road, so the Party Committee had to assign a steering group of 3 people, including 1 Standing Deputy Secretary, 1 member of the Party Committee of the commune, and 1 civil servant to direct the work. When necessary, the Standing Committee or the head of the Party Committee and the government went to the grassroots to directly meet with the people, regardless of Saturday, Sunday, night or day, to propagate and mobilize to remove the people's difficulties. Typically, in hamlet 2, the comrades in the Standing Committee of the commune came to the meeting directly, so they created consensus among the people in working on the high-speed road in the area.
The Commune Steering Committee also determined which hamlets were easy to do first so that other hamlets could follow suit. At the same time, it took advantage of the prestige of former commune leaders and prestigious people in the hamlet to propagate and guide, and mobilize people who were not yet clear about the policy to agree.
“Propaganda and mobilization, if one time is not enough, then many times. Set an example in a few hamlets so that other hamlets can learn from the experience, creating competition between hamlet cadres and people. This hamlet sees that the other hamlet has beautiful roads, and it is comfortable to travel and dry rice and straw, so it urges the hamlet command board to follow suit” – Mr. Nguyen Thuc Quang said.
Thanks to that, from 2016 to now, Nam Anh commune has upgraded, built, and hardened 22,304 km of rural roads of all kinds. The whole commune currently has 26.98 km of asphalt and concrete hamlet roads, with an average roadbed width of 4.5-6m, road surface width of 4-5m, 10 km of asphalt and concrete hamlet roads with an average roadbed width of 3.5-5m, road surface width of 3-5m. In the past year and a half alone, hamlets in Nam Anh commune have built more than 17 km of rural roads that are spacious, high-quality, and beautiful.
Every year, the Commune People's Committee develops a plan to clear the traffic safety corridor, clear the bushes, dredge the sewers, and organize the signing of commitments with the hamlets to strictly comply with the regulations on not dumping materials on the roadbed or sidewalk, and not to build works that violate the traffic safety corridor. The whole commune currently has 56.63 km of roads (commune roads and hamlet roads), of which 34.46 km have been built with covered drainage ditches, reaching a rate of 60.8%, while 21.6% of the km have no ditches but have good drainage. In addition, 27.43 km of commune roads and hamlet roads are planted with flowers and trees, reaching a rate of 48.39%. Currently, the commune is continuing to plant flowers and trees on pond roads and roads in residential areas of hamlets 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, etc.
The achievements in the rural road construction movement, especially the campaign "catching broken roads, carrying new roads" are the premise for Nam Anh commune to launch the campaign "new stadium, new cultural house" ... creating momentum for the commune to reach the model new rural finish line in 2022.
