Difficulty in criteria for poverty reduction and career conversion

(Baonghean) -As a mountainous district under the Government's Program 30a, Que Phong entered the implementation of the National Target Program on New Rural Development (NTM) with many difficulties and challenges. Of the 13 communes (excluding the town), only Que Son commune met 7/19 criteria, the remaining 12 communes only met 3 to 5 criteria.

Having identified the difficulties, immediately after the decision of the province, the district took measures to organize, direct the implementation and assign members in charge of each field and directly direct the communes to implement. Up to now, after 2 years of implementation, in addition to the change in awareness, the New Rural Construction Program in Que Phong has achieved some initial encouraging results. The 2 communes selected as pilot areas, Que Son and Muong Noc, have completed the planning and coordinated with the consulting unit to set up markers according to the approved planning; are adjusting the detailed planning for appraisal and approval to suit the reality for the District People's Committee to re-approve; other communes are signing contracts with relevant consulting units to prepare the planning and submit it to the District People's Committee for appraisal.

Regarding capital mobilization for investment in new rural construction: in 2011, on the basis of an investment capital of 1.874 billion VND, in addition to allocating funds for the District Steering Committee to operate, Que Phong district allocated 100 million VND to each commune for planning; in particular, the 4 communes of Chau Thon, Que Son, Muong Noc, Quang Phong were each given an additional 50 million VND to support production development models and increase people's income. In 2012, the district was invested 1.744 billion VND, of which 820 million VND was spent on building a cultural house in Hamlet 2, Que Son commune; 170 million VND was invested in Muong Noc and Que Son each commune; 84 million VND was allocated to Tien Phong, Hanh Dich, Chau Kim each commune and 86 million VND was allocated to Chau Thon to support production development models and land consolidation.

In addition to the State's support capital, through propaganda and organizing the launching ceremony for the construction of new rural areas in 13/13 communes, in 2 years, 842 households were mobilized to donate 65,241m2 of land to build roads; 6,580 people, equivalent to 25,500 working days, were mobilized; 950 million VND was mobilized from the people and 80 units and enterprises registered to support the construction of rural roads with a total amount of 160 million VND (equivalent to 800m3 of sand, gravel); the district allocated 1.215 billion VND from the budget to support the purchase of stone, sand and gravel materials for road construction and concrete mixers for the communes; received 2,939 tons of cement to build 20 km of concrete roads...

Coming to Hamlet 2 of Que Son Commune, although the work is quite busy at the end of the year, there are still many people participating in road construction. Mr. Nguyen Van Hai, the head of Hamlet 2, said: After the commune launched the project, the Hamlet Executive Committee made a plan and mobilized 86 million VND and more than 400 working days to build traffic. Up to now, the Hamlet has completed 4/5 of the road with nearly 2 km of concrete road 3m wide.

Not only hamlet 2, some other hamlets such as: Na Cong also mobilized people to build 4 concrete roads 1,600m long, Na Ca hamlet built 2 roads with 250m, hamlet 1 built 3 roads 370m long, Hai Lam hamlet 1 road 123m long and Coc village - the poorest hamlet in the commune, but also mobilized people to build 100m of concrete road.

People in hamlet 2, Que Son commune pour concrete on the inter-hamlet road.

Mr. Nguyen Tien Dung, Chairman of Que Son Commune People's Committee, said: In 2012, the commune mobilized 1.256 billion VND; 6/12 villages of Que Son commune, supported by the province with cement, mobilized 1,400 working days to build nearly 4,400m of road, completed 15/18 hamlet roads; mobilized 364 households to donate 22,557m2 of land and contributed more than 28,000m3 of stone, sand, and gravel to build roads. That fact has affirmed that building a new rural area is a policy that is very popular with the people. Thanks to the investment of the State and the support of the people, after 2 years of implementation, the commune has completed 7/19 criteria and is building a number of effective seedlings models, bringing income to the people. However, for the locality, the criteria on reducing the rate of poor households and agricultural workers are very difficult to complete. According to the plan, by 2015, the commune must meet 19 criteria, including less than 10% of poor households and less than 50% of agricultural workers, while currently the commune still has 27% of poor households. Even if each year the poor households are reduced by 5% and nearly 90% of agricultural workers are still employed, it will be very difficult to complete by 2015. In addition to other criteria, the requirement of the new rural area is to mobilize the people and businesses mainly to develop transportation and infrastructure, but this is a mountainous commune and there are still 3 hamlets without electricity; the population is sparse, the people's resources are limited (low income), so it is very difficult to mobilize more resources to develop infrastructure.

Mr. Nguyen Huu Duc, Head of the Migration and New Economic Development Board, Deputy Head of the Steering Committee for New Rural Development in Que Phong District, shared: According to calculations, each mountainous commune needs from 200 billion to 400 billion VND to build and complete the New Rural criteria. In the past 2 years, with only 3.6 billion VND invested from the budget, it is too little and only 27% of the requirement in Decision 800/QD-TTg. Que Phong is a 30a district, so the mobilization of non-budgetary resources is also limited and the implementation is mainly integrated with programs to build New Rural. In order for Que Phong to complete the planned targets by 2015 as assigned by the province (in which 2 pilot communes complete 19 criteria, the remaining communes complete 50% of the criteria), the province needs to allocate enough capital according to Decision No. 695/2012/QD-TTg on the mechanism for allocating investment capital for district 30a, accordingly, the investment rate for Que Phong will be higher than the general investment rate of the whole province. Along with the policy of supporting 30% of the cost of buying sand and gravel to build rural roads of the district, the province needs to continue the 2013 cement support policy in accordance with the needs and ability to mobilize from the people (counterpart source) of each locality, the resources are used with the highest efficiency.

Article and photos: Nguyen Hai