Infrastructure investment for "New Rural Areas"

(Baonghean) -Up to now, the new rural construction program in Do Luong has been implemented, creating many changes; in which, the completion of essential infrastructure is identified as a hard target, contributing to serving production and improving the quality of people's lives.

Coming to Thinh Son commune, the first impression is that the rural traffic routes are airy and clean. Mr. Nguyen Xuan Chinh in hamlet 9, Thinh Son commune confided: "Now there will be a complete concrete road connecting the hamlets to the fields, vehicles transporting crops conveniently, children going to school more secure than before". Walking around all the roads that the villagers have just completed, Ms. Pham Thi Huong - Secretary of the Party Cell of hamlet 9, said: "Currently, the hamlet has mobilized people to contribute thousands of working days, thousands of cubic meters of gravel to build the road. Taking advantage of 130 tons of cement from the district's supply, 50% of the volume of sand and gravel from the commune's support, people have worked hard to complete nearly 400m/700m of concrete traffic roads in the hamlet. In addition, the hamlet has also mobilized over 350 million VND from children working far away to build a new hamlet cultural house headquarters".

People in Hamlet 7, Thinh Son Commune cleared the corridor to build a standard rural road.

Before entering the new rural construction, the entire Thinh Son commune only met 5/19 criteria. The main traffic routes did not meet the standards. The headquarters of many cultural houses were not guaranteed, some villages did not have any. To build new roads, the commune quickly completed the planning to expand the roads. The commune's steering committee went to each household to mobilize people to contribute labor, each person 500 thousand VND, donate rice fields, residential land to build roads and called on local children who work far away to support more. Mr. Thai Khac Mao - Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Thinh Son commune, said: In the past 2 years, the commune has taken advantage of the 2 billion support source for building central asphalt roads of the province, nearly 1 thousand tons of cement for concrete village roads, 170 million VND for land improvement, the people of the commune have actively contributed nearly 1 billion VND to build traffic infrastructure and cultural houses. Many hamlets mobilized their children far from home to contribute, such as hamlet 9 with over 300 million VND, hamlet 12 with nearly 200 million VND and hamlet 5 with over 200 million VND. In particular, thousands of working days from the people were mobilized. Up to now, the whole commune has built over 4km/5km of main roads meeting class A standards, of which hamlet 4 has nearly 350m, hamlet 10 has 400m, 15/15 hamlets have cultural houses, etc. The commune has strived to complete and achieve 12/19 NTM criteria.

To achieve the main goal of building a new rural area, Luu Son commune focuses on improving the fields associated with the work of building regional and plot banks to serve the consolidation of fields and the construction of an internal traffic system. In particular, the whole commune has 2 drainage dams in Hong Phong and Tran Phu, over 20km of canals, but only over 80% of the canals have been solidified. The branches leading to the foot of the fields have not been solidified. Mr. Dao Anh Tai - Chairman of the People's Committee of Luu Son commune, said: The commune has mobilized people to "use their own strength", focusing on hamlets to develop specific plans for improvement, repair, digging and building canals. At the same time, contributing land to expand internal traffic roads. In particular, actively converting the winter crop structure on 2-rice land and colored land to bring high economic income. Thanks to the solidarity and high consensus of the people, up to now, the whole commune has mobilized people to improve over 45 thousand square meters, dig and fill over 155 kilometers with a volume of over 230 thousand cubic meters of soil. Over 900/1050 households in Dien Bien, Hong Phong, Phu Tho hamlets have contributed over 4.5 hectares of agricultural land to expand intra-field roads and canals. In the past year, the whole commune has repaired and renewed over 1.3 kilometers of intra-field canals, installed 199 irrigation culverts with a total cost of hundreds of millions of VND. In that spirit, the whole commune has now mobilized the conversion of over 170 hectares of 2-rice and colored land for winter-spring crop cultivation, bringing in 3 to 4 times more income than before.

Discussing the current construction of new rural areas in the area, Mr. Tran Doan Hung - Head of the Department of Agriculture, Deputy Head of the Steering Committee for New Rural Area Construction in Do Luong district, said: The construction of essential infrastructure for new rural areas is an important indicator that the district is most concerned about. Depending on the conditions of each locality, there will be specific plans to build essential infrastructure items. Based on the planning, the district mobilizes people to donate land, contribute land, and mobilize people to understand the spirit of the policy of not expecting land compensation but only donating land and contributing efforts to build rural roads and build standard welfare works. Along with that, the district focuses on mobilizing households that are not capable of agricultural production to accumulate land for concentrated production and intensive investment. For communes using irrigation systems from the Van Trang pumping station system, they will gradually switch to proactive and scientific irrigation to save water, and build canal systems.

Thanks to the active and proactive efforts, up to now, the entire Do Luong district has completed 42 km of type A rural roads. In 2012, the district implemented integrated maintenance and repair programs on over 33 km of roads, including 11 km of type A roads, 12 km of type B roads, 10 km of type C roads, and over 48 km of intra-field roads. Regarding the canal system, the district implemented maintenance and repair for communes on 30 km, and built over 13 km of new canals. Thanks to the mobilization of contributions from the people and external resources, the entire district has built 5 new commune People's Committee headquarters with a cost of over 20 billion VND, built 2 new medical stations, 8 commune cultural houses, bringing 20/33 communes and towns to have commune cultural houses. The entire district has mobilized over 200 billion VND from the state budget, people's contributions, and other credit loans to implement the construction of welfare works. Many units actively responded such as Thuong Son, Yen Son, Van Son...

Article and photos: Luong Mai