Mobilizing people to build village roads

(Baonghean) - In recent times, the construction and upgrading of rural transport systems has received active participation from local people; Although there are still many difficulties, it is easy to see that village roads in rural areas in the province have become more spacious and spacious.

Coming to Hung Dong commune - Vinh city, it is easy to see that the traffic system here has been paved straight and spacious. Mr. Nguyen Xuan Tho - Chairman of the People's Committee of the commune excitedly said: Before implementing the National Target Program on New Rural Construction, although there had been investment in construction, the rural traffic system here still had many shortcomings. The rate of asphalted and hardened roads only reached 50%, some alley roads in the rainy season were often muddy. Starting to implement the New Rural Construction, the goal was to have 100% of the commune, inter-commune, and hamlet roads paved with asphalt and concrete and the entire system of main roads in the fields hardened for convenient motor vehicle travel.

During the implementation process, the commune set up road boundary markers, organized site clearance to open roads in accordance with the planning, and at the same time integrated investment programs and projects to upgrade over 5 km of commune roads, nearly 12 km of village and intra-field roads combined with land conversion. “The cost of rural traffic construction is up to nearly 40 billion VND, of which the money from people donating land is 3.2 billion VND with nearly 7,500 m2 of land. This result is thanks to our good propaganda work, strict implementation of democracy and transparency, so we received a very high consensus from the people. Although land prices in the city are quite high, many households have voluntarily donated land to widen the road,” Mr. Tho shared.

Do Luong district is considered one of the localities with a fairly active rural traffic movement. Mr. Nguyen Cong Chau - Vice Chairman of the District People's Committee said: The whole district has built and upgraded 326 km of rural roads, of which more than 90 km of grade A and B concrete roads have been newly built. People have contributed more than 200,000 working days and donated more than 145,000 m2 of land to build infrastructure works, including the rural traffic system.

People in Hamlet 4, Nghia Hoa Commune (Thai Hoa Town) pour concrete on village roads according to NTM standards. Photo: Nguyen Son

Although it is a mountainous district, in recent years, Tuong Duong has always been a locality that has been highly appreciated in implementing the rural traffic movement. From the support mechanism of the province, the district has focused on propaganda and mobilizing people to donate land and contribute to road construction. Up to now, Tuong Duong has received nearly 7,500 tons of cement; the district has mobilized people to contribute nearly 28 thousand cubic meters of sand and gravel, over 38 thousand working days, and built 50 km of concrete roads; 162 km of village roads.

In the past nearly 4 years, since the implementation of the new rural construction program, despite many difficulties in terms of mechanisms, policies and capital, the rural traffic movement in the whole province has achieved encouraging results. Localities have mobilized and integrated resources, especially promoting the internal strength of the people, the contributions of businesses and children far from home to build roads. It can be said that the rural traffic movement is the strongest movement, receiving the consensus and support of the majority of people. Up to now, the whole province has built and upgraded 3,365 km of rural roads of all kinds with a total cost of 6,295.55 billion VND. Of which, 1,052 km have been asphalted or concreted to meet the standards of roads and hamlets; 1,241 km have been hardened to meet the standards of village and hamlet main roads; 811 km have been graded to meet the standards of alley and hamlet roads; Hardening of 261 km of main intra-field roads. Currently, the whole province has 45/431 communes meeting traffic criteria, accounting for 10%. There are many bright spots in the movement of donating land for road construction such as in Van Dien (Nam Dan); Do Thanh, Son Thanh (Yen Thanh), or Thinh Son (Do Luong)...

The movement to build rural roads has been carried out by local people for many years and has been further promoted when the province has a cement support mechanism. This year, according to the plan, the province will allocate 3 batches and advance (from 2015) 333,938 tons of cement, with a total amount of VND 478.407 billion, equivalent to 1,860 km. Up to now, the whole province has completed 1,347/1,860 km, reaching 72.4%. However, the advance payment of cement for building rural roads is currently facing some difficulties. Mr. Bui Dinh Dong - Deputy Head of the General Department - Provincial Office for Coordination of New Rural Construction said: Since 2012, when we started to implement the movement to build rural roads, the province has had a mechanism to support localities to borrow cement from factories in the province so that localities can advance for building roads. The loan mechanism is to pay every 6 months. However, by 2014, because the province had not yet balanced the budget to pay for cement, these factories requested to change the method of supplying in installments, only when the previous installment was paid would the next batch of cement be delivered.

However, the province currently owes the factories 120 billion VND, although the province has tried to allocate 20 billion VND to pay the debt, but for the past few months, only Hoang Mai Cement Factory has continued to "buy debt". This difficulty has greatly affected the progress of rural road construction in the localities, but there is still no solution to resolve it. According to Mr. Dong: The third phase plan alone is 115,700 tons of cement, equivalent to 620 km, but by November 21, the whole province has only completed 254 km, reaching 40.9%. The reason is that the supply of cement from the factories is interrupted and delayed, causing many districts and communes to be confused and passive. Currently, many communes are facing difficulties in traffic criteria. In addition to financial difficulties, due to the complex terrain, especially mountainous areas that often have floods during the rainy season, construction is difficult.

In reality, the scale of rural road construction is still small and limited in terms of load capacity. On many roads, people pour concrete pillars to prevent heavy trucks from passing, which is not really a driving force for development.

Phu Huong