Project of a village for farming and settlement in Tho Son (Anh Son): Still on paper

(Baonghean) -The project "Building a settled village" for ethnic minorities in Thung Chanh area - Tho Son commune (Anh Son) was approved for investment by the province. After nearly 3 years of implementation, the project is still at a standstill.

Many households in Tho Son commune settled in Thung Chanh hill and found it difficult to reclaim their land.

The project of building a village for ethnic minorities in Thung Chanh area, Tho Son commune was approved for investment by the Provincial People's Committee under Decision 920/UBND - NN in March 2009, with Anh Son District People's Committee as the investor with a total investment of 12.6 billion VND. Accordingly, 50 new houses will be built and 4 houses will be relocated for 54 Thai households who are nomadic to settle down. The approved list of infrastructure includes 3km of gravel road from Ke Trang to the resettlement area, 2km of internal road in the resettlement area, kindergarten, primary school, housing for teachers, community house, domestic water system, electricity works and irrigation system to ensure irrigation for 10 hectares of rice. However, up to now, the project's list is still on paper.

According to Mr. Nguyen Canh Thanh - Chairman of Tho Son Commune People's Committee: "During the project implementation, the State also had a policy of "eliminating temporary, dilapidated houses" according to Program 134, 167, so before that, ethnic minority people in village 1 and village 9 were called to build houses. As of July 2012, according to statistics, the number of Thai ethnic households without houses was 25, of which village 1 had 20 households and village 9 had 5 households. In addition, because it is adjacent to Quy Hop, the management of administrative boundaries encountered many difficulties, the plan to reclaim Nam Pho land was unsuccessful, because since 1990, 1992, Quy Hop people have come here to cultivate, exploit and use. Meanwhile, the land in Thung Chanh area within the project area belongs to forestry land that has been exploited by the people themselves since the 1980s, and is now planted with trees. "It is not easy to reclaim the land, and if the land is reclaimed, there will be no land to compensate for the 12 households living here."

Ms. Nguyen Thi Thuy An - Head of the Ethnic Minorities and Mountainous Areas Department of Anh Son district, said: The above project was approved in general, but the items were approved annually, so it was very difficult. From 2009 to now, the province has only granted the project nearly 3 billion VND, which was used to build a 3km gravel road to Thung Chanh. Another reason is that the Tho Son commune government has not yet intervened to completely resolve the issue of land for project construction.

I think that the People's Committee of Anh Son district, as the investor, needs to soon find a solution to implement the project to stabilize the lives of 54 ethnic minority households without housing in the area.

Son Luong