About 60,000 poor households will be supported to build flood-proof houses.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung agreed with the proposal of the Ministry of Construction and localities to allow the continued implementation of a large-scale policy to support poor households in improving housing safety and responding to floods in 14 provinces and cities in the North Central and Central Coast regions, estimated at about 60,000 households.

This morning (April 8), in Phu Yen, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung attended the conference to summarize the pilot program to support the construction of flood-resistant housing in the North Central and Central Coast regions, organized by the Ministry of Construction.

Highly practical model

In recent years, due to the impact of climate change, natural disasters have occurred more frequently in the North Central and Central Coast regions, with greater intensity and more unpredictable developments, causing severe damage to people and property. In just the past 5-6 years, floods have killed over 1,500 people and damaged over 500,000 houses, of which over 42,000 collapsed or were swept away by water.

In the overall project on natural disaster prevention, control and mitigation for people in the Central region, the Government has advocated implementing solutions to support poor households to improve housing safety conditions and respond to floods through the construction of flood shelters and housing for households. The Prime Minister issued Decision 716 dated June 14, 2012 to pilot this solution to gain experience before implementing it on a large scale.

Localities have chosen to pilot the construction of flood shelters for 700 poor households in 14 communes severely affected by floods in 7 provinces: Thanh Hoa, Nghe An, Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Nam, Quang Ngai, Phu Yen. To date, 697/700 households have completed the construction of flood shelters, reaching 99.6%.

Speaking at the conference, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung assessed that the flood prevention hut model has many outstanding advantages compared to other models and is very practical. Although the Government's support is still modest, localities have actively mobilized more support and assistance from the community and especially the contributions and sharing of households themselves, so the flood prevention huts are all guaranteed, exceeding the prescribed area and quality.

Many households combine the construction of 2-storey houses with beautiful architecture, suitable to the customs and lifestyle of the household. The model of building a house to avoid floods is suitable to reality and is supported by the people.

Widely deploy the policy of supporting flood-proof houses for poor households

Housing is one of the basic human needs. Housing policy is not only economically significant, but also has profound social and humanitarian significance. One of the focuses is to develop social housing to meet the housing needs of poor and low-income households who have housing difficulties and are unable to create housing under the market mechanism in both urban and rural areas; at the same time, continue to effectively implement ongoing housing programs.

Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac

With such a common spirit, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung agreed with the proposal of the Ministry of Construction and localities to allow the continued implementation of a large-scale policy to support poor households in improving housing safety conditions and responding to floods in 14 provinces and cities in the North Central and Central Coast regions (from Thanh Hoa to Binh Thuan) with about 60,000 poor households.

The Ministry of Construction is responsible for synthesizing the opinions of ministries, branches and localities at the Conference to complete the summary report, draw lessons from the advantages and disadvantages in the implementation process. On that basis, review to amend according to authority or propose to supplement, amend and perfect the mechanism, policies as well as implementation methods appropriately to submit to the Prime Minister for consideration and decision in the third quarter of 2013 and can be implemented in the fourth quarter of 2013.

The Prime Minister assigned relevant ministries and branches to study and propose appropriate support levels and preferential loans for localities implementing the program; consider proposals on expanding support policies for near-poor households in building flood-proof houses.

(Chinhphu.vn) - LY