Speeding up site clearance for coastal road project through Dien Chau and Nghi Loc

ProjectCoastal roadThe road from Nghi Son (Thanh Hoa) to Cua Lo (Nghe An) is nearly 70km long. Of which, the length requiring site clearance is 59.91km, passing through Hoang Mai, Quynh Luu, Dien Chau, Nghi Loc and Cua Lo towns, with a total investment of 4,651 billion VND.

The section through agricultural land is 43.87km long/4,400 plots; through residential areas is 6.33km long/401 households, of which 96 households must be resettled with 160 plots of land. In addition, there is 8.53km through forestry land with 159 plots, along with other land, graves and construction works that must be relocated.

Construction of weak soil treatment using sand wells on coastal road. Photo: Tran Chau

In Dien Chau, the coastal road project has a total length of about 24.44 km, passing through 6 communes: Dien Hung (3.87 km, Dien Hai 1.75 km, Dien Kim 6.05 km, Dien Thanh 3.1 km; Dien Thinh 4.82 ha and Dien Trung 4.85 km). Of which, agricultural land is 19.39 km; residential land, garden land 0.32 km; forestry land 4.11 km and land for education, production and business, religion... 0.62 km. The total number of affected plots is about 2,122 plots, including 1,958 plots of agricultural land, 19 plots of residential land, garden land, 136 plots of forestry land and 9 other plots.

Currently, in Dien Chau, there are still 5.3 km/889 plots that cannot be cleared. According to the leader of Dien Chau District People's Committee, the reason for not being able to complete the clearance is because the section passes through protective forest land belonging to Dien Hai and Dien Kim communes. The households have been granted certificates of land use rights by the District People's Committee for protective forest land, however, according to regulations, they will not be compensated for the land when it is recovered, so the households are having opinions and have not accepted to hand over the land.

Dien Van Bridge connecting to Dien Kim (Dien Chau) is located on the coastal road under construction. Photo: Tran Chau

Or in Dien Kim commune, the land is rented by a business for aquaculture (land rent paid annually), currently the Council has established a compensation plan for site clearance but the business has not agreed. Not to mention that there are 9 households in Dien Thanh who are subject to the policy of resettlement due to the flood in 1989, have received land in the new place, but still do not move their houses but stay on the old land. Among them, some households have transferred their land to their children or transferred to others for the land plot in the new place, now there is no other land left besides the old place, so the households are making recommendations that need to be handled.

In addition to Dien Chau district, Nghi Loc district has also handed over 7.23 km/9.66 km of land, reaching 75%. Or Quynh Luu district has handed over 10.05 km/16.17 km, reaching 62%... Currently, localities are urgently carrying out site clearance work to soon hand over to the construction unit.

The Dien Van bridge project is being accelerated by the contractor. Photo: Tien Dong

Localities where the coastal road project passes through said that the most difficult part of land clearance is the slowness in verifying the origin, checking the population and the land acquisition rate of the localities; the work of inventory, pricing, submitting for appraisal and approval, and mobilizing payment to hand over the land for the project is also slow. Not to mention the difficulties in building resettlement sites and relocating infrastructure works on the route.

Therefore, in order to soon complete the handover of the project site, the Department of Transport is currently recommending that localities prioritize the handover of more than 10km of agricultural and forestry land before September 30, 2022. At the same time, speed up the progress of price approval, construction of resettlement areas, relocation of graves... to soon have a site for the construction unit.