New rural construction in commune 135

(Baonghean) - Tien Ky is a particularly difficult commune of Tan Ky district, with difficult traffic. During the rainy season, the commune is completely isolated by Khe Than and Khe Loa. On this occasion, coming to Tien Ky, we felt the changes here, especially the spirit of building new rural areas of the Party Committee and the people of the commune...

(Passing Khe Than, we arrived at Tien Ky, commune 135 of Tan Ky district, 40 km from the town, bordering Tho Son, Binh Son (Anh Son) to the west and Chau Son, Chau Ly communes of Quy Hop to the north. On both sides of the road, the summer-autumn rice is starting to take on milk. Sugarcane is growing and the villagers are carefully peeling off the leaves to prevent planthoppers. Previously, the villagers' lives mainly depended on the forest, exploiting bamboo shoots, bitter bamboo shoots, wild boars, honey, wood, rattan, etc. Now, thanks to new applications of science and technology, the villagers have produced hybrid rice twice a year, with a yield of 56 quintals/ha. In addition to rice, sugarcane and cassava are the main crops, so the people are very interested in investing, with a yield of over 60 tons/ha. The red-tiled roofs here are all made from sugarcane and cassava. The center of Tien Ky commune has appeared with rows of small booths, about a dozen households doing carpentry, a few milling households, and some Grocery, clothing, and bicycle parts stalls. Electricity has reached 100% of households, so people's material and spiritual lives have been improved. Implementing the new rural construction program, roads have been cleared with wide traffic safety corridors from 6m to 8m. Some high-income business models have begun to appear, such as fish and duck farms, pig farms, or goat farming.

Chairman of Tien Ky Commune People's Committee Vi Hong Son - a young cadre of Tan Ky district (born in 1979) who was transferred here nearly a year ago shared: The new rural program was previously implemented, but from 2013 until now, the commune has focused on directing it highly. The commune Party Committee, organizations such as the Veterans Association, Youth Union, and Women's Union have all taken drastic action, considering this a key task, both to develop the economy and to take advantage of the State's cement support. The commune has established a new rural construction program propaganda committee, and hamlets have established committees, including the Propaganda Committee to clearly explain to people the goals, benefits, and roles of each household and individual when implementing the new rural construction program.

Ke Gieng hamlet is a cultural hamlet, which was invested in cement by the commune to build rural roads first. The muddy road before has been paved with concrete meeting new rural standards with a thickness of 20cm, a width of 3m, motorbikes can run smoothly. How can a mountainous hamlet with 100% Thai ethnic group be able to implement the new rural road construction movement so well? Ke Gieng hamlet chief Vi Van Van said: To propagate for people to understand and build roads, while only having cement support from the State, we held hamlet meetings 6 times a month, in the following months we held fewer meetings, the hamlet together with organizations and fronts continuously went to each house to mobilize, when everyone agreed, we mobilized 300 thousand VND per person. In addition, we mobilized people to go to Khe Than to get sand and gravel, carry them back, a total of 28 trucks of sand and gravel were poured into the road. The hamlet was divided into 8 groups, each group had 6 people, directly working on rural traffic. "It took a week to finish, if one group finished first, they would come and work to make the other groups as happy as a festival" - Mr. Vi Van Van, head of Ke Gieng hamlet, recalled.

In hamlet 7, with the characteristics of people living on both sides of the mountain, in the middle is a valley, traveling is very difficult. When the rainy season comes, water overflows the road causing severe landslides. Mr. Phan Trong Chi, Secretary of the hamlet Party cell, said: In addition to the 7 criteria that have been met, the traffic criterion is the most difficult. Under the direction of the commune, the hamlet focuses on clearing the traffic safety corridor according to the correct standards. The road is 6m wide, with full bridges, culverts, and ditches. Hamlet 7 needs to construct 2 large culverts and 18 small culverts, of which the large culvert is 8m long and 4m wide. To overcome the terrain, the hamlet has directed the digging of ditches on the hillside (1m wide ditch) and on the field side, many cubic meters of soil and rock must be filled to ensure no landslides. The hamlet has mobilized people to contribute manpower and resources to clear the road. The hamlet's steering committee has been sticking to the road and the scene regardless of the heat for the past month to achieve high results. In addition to labor contributions, the hamlet has mobilized a total of 89 million VND from households, divided into 3 installments, allowing some households to pay their debts until the sugarcane harvest season. The mobilized money was used to hire machinery to level and dig soil to build the road. The villagers contributed labor, carried rocks and soil to level small gaps. Thanks to that, after a month of implementation, the work has been completed, the road is wide enough for cars to pass, creating conditions for future construction.

Commune Chairman Vi Hong Son said: In addition to the cement provided by the province, the commune has allocated the budget to invest 23.6 tons of cement for hamlets to build bridges and culverts across the road. The hamlets mobilized workers, sand, gravel and rocks to do the work. People have actively completed the bridges and culverts across the road to ensure travel during the rainy and flood season. Not only hamlets 3 and 7, many party cell secretaries in the commune have been very active in the new rural movement such as Lo Van Tam in hamlet 1, Lo Van Dien in hamlet 10, Bui Cong Ky in hamlet 5...

Commune Chairman Vi Hong Son said: For mountainous areas, income is the most important criterion, currently Tien Ky has only reached an average of 12 million VND/person/year. Based on the potential of livestock, the commune is directing the improvement of the quality of buffalo and cow herds and intensive crop cultivation. The commune's total herd of buffalo and cows is 1,652, of which 1,200 are buffaloes. People raise many buffaloes for pulling and plowing fields, and now they also raise buffalo and cows for goods. The commune also focuses on developing the goat herd, the total herd currently has nearly 1,000 goats. Previously, people raised goats in the forest, on farms, but now people keep them in captivity and go to the forest to pick leaves to feed the goats...

Pig farm of Ms. Nguyen Thi Hanh in hamlet 8, Tien Ky.

Regarding rice, the whole commune currently has 218 hectares of hybrid rice, with a yield of 56 quintals/ha, and rice is produced twice a year. When we arrived in Tien Ky, the commune was instructing people to spray in advance to control young leaf rollers. To improve crop productivity, the commune has a plan to focus on training people. Mr. Son said: Although the Thai people do not have to hold hands to do the work, their access to technology is still limited. The State's training sessions for people are no longer regular. The commune has directly gone to the sugar factory to invite agricultural officers to train people on intensive sugarcane cultivation techniques, and invited agricultural extension officers to train rice planting techniques... There will still be many difficulties in building new rural areas in Tien Ky, but with the initial results, especially the leadership role of the Party Committee, the government, and the trust of the villagers in the Party and State's policies on the new rural construction program...

Chau Lan