Rural transport: Difficult in both funding and management

(Baonghean) - The road system in the province is currently about 17,270km, of which, district roads have 403 routes with a total length of 4,169km, commune roads have 451 routes with a total length of 10,206km. However, investment in resources for maintenance is still limited.

Current status of district roads

Nguyen Van Troi Road (from Mung Bridge - Hung Nguyen Town through Hung Tay and Hung Yen communes to Thanh Phong village, Hung Trung commune) is 27 km long and is one of the important traffic routes of Hung Nguyen district. However, after a short time of being put into use, this road has seriously degraded. To ensure traffic safety before the flood season, recently, through the investment capital of Hung Nguyen district and other support sources with a total cost of 3 billion VND, the road has been treated with rubber, built a secondary roadbed, and asphalted with crushed stone by the construction unit, and is now ready for traffic.

Maintenance of Road 22 (Yen Thanh).

In Yen Thanh, although the development of rural transport has been given attention over the years and recognized by the Ministry of Transport and the province, many routes are still seriously degraded. District roads such as town roads, Hospital - Tan Thanh road, Road 22 connecting Provincial Road 538 with National Highway 48... have been paved, but because the investment has been made for a long time, the roadbed has poor soil quality (Yen Thanh is a low-lying plain area) and overloaded vehicles have caused many sections to peel off, degrade, and the roadside to erode. Despite these shortcomings, the capital for maintenance is very limited.

In 2014, only 2 km of Route 22 was repaired with a cost of 2 billion VND, and the town - Duc Thanh road is currently being repaired with a length of more than 1 km, with a cost of 1.8 billion VND, all from the provincial road maintenance fund. In addition, the district also invested in weak and severely damaged points, but only in small amounts, not meeting the requirements. Mr. Phan Thanh Cao, Head of the District's Department of Industry and Trade, said that to overcome difficulties and ensure traffic, since 2000, the district has regularly organized rural traffic campaigns, twice a year, the first from March to May and the second from October to December, to mobilize the entire population to focus on clearing sewers, filling in roadbeds to ensure smoothness, maintaining and repairing weak sections, clearing roadbeds according to the plan, etc.

In Tuong Duong district, the roads on the mountain and cliff sides are often eroded; many bridges and sections of the road are often flooded during the rainy season, cutting off traffic.

Entering Yen Na (extending to Yen Tinh with a length of 11 km), the longitudinal drainage system was filled, some positive slope landslides with relatively large volumes, causing damage to the road surface, affecting traffic safety. Or the Khe Kien - Nam Can route with a length of 13.5 km (the starting point of the intersection with National Highway 7A at Khe Kien intersection) the road surface has seriously degraded, especially some sections of the route have negative slope erosion, the road surface is completely damaged with a length of 35m. The positive slope landslides with relatively large volumes. Many routes in Tuong Duong are degraded, but the repair work is not simple.

Lack of funds

In fact, roads managed by the Department of Transport and national highways managed by the Road Administration Department II are still funded (but were also cut sharply in 2014 and 2013). For district and commune roads, most districts and towns assign the People's Committees of communes to manage district roads through their areas and manage commune roads, but have not yet allocated capital for management and maintenance. Regular maintenance work mainly mobilizes people to do rural traffic combined with irrigation on annual holidays, while repair costs are mainly waiting for the road maintenance fund.

But now, the road maintenance fee collection program is temporarily suspended, so it is impossible to rely on this source of capital. Mr. Nguyen Quang Vinh - Chief of Office of the Provincial Road Maintenance Fund said that the capital for the management and maintenance of national highways and provincial roads is increasingly limited, decreasing over the years. In 2015, the funding source for road maintenance was over 97 billion VND. Of which, the provincial budget for provincial road maintenance was 28.5 billion VND, the road use fee revenue for cars provided by the Central Road Support Fund was 68.7 billion VND, to be allocated to 9 provincial roads (28.225 billion VND) and 22 district and commune roads (40.5 billion VND).

Most districts and towns have not yet allocated funds for regular repairs or have only made emergency repairs to ensure traffic on some routes. Specifically: 4 districts (Nghi Loc, Do Luong, Nam Dan, Dien Chau) have allocated from 1 - 2 billion VND/year; an average of 210 km/district. 6 districts and towns (Thanh Chuong, Cua Lo Town, Anh Son, Hung Nguyen, Yen Thanh, Tan Ky) have allocated funds of 300 - 700 million VND/year, an average of 270 km/district. The limited funding for management and maintenance has caused damage and deterioration to many routes.

Mr. Le Thanh Binh, Deputy Head of the Traffic Infrastructure Management Department, Department of Transport, said that in addition to financial reasons, it must also be said that the management and maintenance of district and commune roads have not received due attention. Many localities have not updated and archived road and bridge records in accordance with regulations.

The road to Tan Hop - Tan Ky is severely degraded (photo: Quang An)

To effectively exploit traffic works, it is necessary to socialize the work of regular management and maintenance (organizing bidding for management and maintenance for 3-5 years) and monitoring and accepting results according to quality. Strengthen the semi-professional Project Management Board of Transport Career Capital (Department of Transport) and the Road Management Department (Department of Road Management II) to strengthen the task of monitoring and managing the quality of works under the direction of the General Department of Roads. For district and commune roads, continue to advise the Provincial People's Committee on documents serving the work of road management and maintenance.

In addition to organizing training on regulations related to management and maintenance tasks, the People's Committees of districts and communes shall allocate funds for regular management and maintenance of district and commune roads. The People's Committees of districts and communes shall consolidate the team of professional staff to ensure sufficient qualifications and capacity to organize management and maintenance. Carry out naming and numbering of roads... as a basis for decentralization of management in accordance with regulations. Allocate capital from the budget for investment in rural transport development and management and maintenance of district and commune roads to reach about 2% - 3% of the total annual provincial budget revenue in the area...

Thu Huyen