Manual brick kilns and negative impacts: Part 3: Need for specific and appropriate mechanisms

The elimination of manual brick kilns in Nghe An province as per the Government’s policy is still facing many difficulties and problems. One of the main reasons is the lack of appropriate mechanisms and solutions.

In Decision No. 115/2001/QD-TTg, dated August 1, 2001 of the Prime Minister on approving the master plan for the development of Vietnam's construction materials industry until 2010, the orientation was: Gradually develop unburnt brick products in areas without raw materials for burning, moving towards eliminating the production of fired clay bricks using manual kilns on the outskirts of urban areas before 2005, in other areas before 2010.

Next, in Decision No. 567/QD-TTg, dated April 28, 2010 of the Prime Minister on approving the Program for developing unburnt construction materials until 2020, it also continued to orient the development of production and use of unburnt materials to replace burnt clay bricks to move towards completely eliminating establishments producing burnt clay bricks using manual kilns.

Implementing the Prime Minister's policy, the Provincial People's Committee has issued many documents directing and urging relevant departments, branches, and districts, cities and towns to implement the elimination of manual brick kilns in the province.

According to the plan, by 2006, Vinh City and surrounding areas must complete the plan to eliminate manual brick kilns; the plain districts must complete it by 2007; the midland and mountainous districts must complete it by 2010. And in the latest plan of the Provincial People's Committee according to Decision 2743/QD-UBND, dated June 24, 2010, the province aims to end manual brick kilns in the province by 2013.

The existence of manual brick kilns is a historical issue, reflecting the need to develop production from manual workshops to large-scale industrial scale. In terms of socio-economic efficiency, this type of production and business has made certain contributions, meeting the demand for materials for civil construction works and even state works in the province. According to the 2010 statistics of the Department of Construction, manual brick kilns achieved an output of 200 million bricks/year, of which 150 million bricks met standards, equal to 37.5% of the total output of standard bricks in the whole province.

In addition, the manual brick kilns have contributed to the budget, from 3 to 5 billion VND per year. In addition, this type of production and business also contributes to solving jobs for tens of thousands of workers, increasing income for the people (on average, each kiln has about 25 to 40 regular and seasonal workers).

However, as analyzed, this type affects the ecology, the environment, and the use of land resources. On the other hand, if the area of ​​handmade brick production is included in other current economic models, such as agricultural production with rice cultivation, farming, raising pigs, chickens, ducks, aquaculture; or building small-scale industrial and handicraft zones, the economic efficiency will be much higher.

However, the current difficulty and obstacle in eliminating manual brick kilns is the lack of strong direction from the province. The documents of the Central and the province have long been only directional, recommendative, reminder, and warning for localities to be proactive in reducing and eventually eliminating these outdated production technologies, but there are no mechanisms or sanctions to implement them resolutely and thoroughly.

On the other hand, the elimination of manual brick kilns is not "overnight", but there are still many problems surrounding it: job conversion, employment; workers' income; and the issue of construction materials supplied to the local market, when "demand" is really needed to have "supply".

In addition, due to the benefits from budget contributions, or brick support for building public works such as schools and roads, localities have turned a blind eye to brick kiln owners continuing to operate, even though their contracts have expired.

Mr. Hoang Trong Kim - Director of the Department of Construction, affirmed: "This problem cannot be solved immediately with an administrative decision but must have a plan, roadmap, steps, and appropriate mechanism. Because the manual brick kilns themselves are the livelihood of many workers, of many families; are the place that provides a relatively large source of construction materials for projects; is the issue of the contract period signed between communes and brick kiln owners (there are contracts of 5 years, 10 years, even 20 years, 30 years); is a historical tradition, considered in both production and consumption aspects. Therefore, the elimination of manual brick kilns requires a process, time and it must be clearly determined that the elimination of manual brick kilns, some kilns can be eliminated quickly, some later based on the contract period, but cannot be done massively...".

From the discussions of some districts, brick kiln owners and workers, a good sign is that all are very willing to support the policy of the Government and the province. The problem is that the province needs to issue a more drastic directive document with a specific plan, roadmap, mechanism and sanctions.

There should be appropriate support mechanisms to help brick kiln owners change production technology or change occupations; support workers to have opportunities to find new jobs. On the other hand, the province should also have policies to encourage and motivate manual kiln owners to abolish, because according to brick kiln owners, to invest in building a manual brick kiln costs about 600 - 800 million VND, some kilns cost up to over 1 billion VND, when abolished, it will lose a large financial resource.

The province needs to pay attention to creating conditions to promote brick and tile production projects using advanced technology of continuous vertical kilns or tunnels; unburnt brick production projects; and at the same time invest in increasing the capacity of existing tunnel kilns.

Only then can we compensate and replace the shortage of output when manual kilns stop operating simultaneously, avoiding the situation where brick and tile prices are pushed up too high when "demand" is greater than "supply". Strengthen propaganda, raise awareness, thereby gradually changing the habit of using manual fired bricks to using unfired bricks that meet Vietnamese standards.

Plum Blossom