Nghe An strives to have 40% of wards and towns meet civilized urban standards by 2025.

Comrade Bui Dinh Long - Member of the Provincial Party Committee, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee chaired the conference. Also attending were representatives of leaders of provincial departments, agencies, People's Committees of districts, towns and wards in Vinh city.

Representatives of provincial departments, agencies, leaders of People's Committees of districts, towns and wards of Vinh City attended the conference to deploy the implementation of civilized urban criteria for the period 2023-2025 and orientation to 2030. Photo: Nguyen Hai

After nearly 10 years of building and implementing civilized urban criteria according to Circular No. 02, Nghe An has achieved encouraging results, but compared to the movement and results of building New Rural Areas in recent years, the building and implementation of urban criteria is not commensurate.

In fact,Nghe An urbanization ratestill low and slow compared to the national average; there is still a lack of typical urban residential blocks and routes that meet the "green - clean - beautiful" standards; the urban environment in some places and at some times is still lax, causing public opinion and the press to reflect...

Comrade Bui Cong Vinh - Deputy Director of the Department of Culture and Sports reported on the assessment of 10 years of implementing Circular No. 02 on implementing civilized urban criteria and the draft Plan for implementing civilized urban criteria according to Decision 04/QD-TTg in 2022. Photo: Nguyen Hai

At the conference, the representative of the Department of Culture and Sports said: Implementing Circular No. 02/2013/TT-BVH,TT&DL of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in 2013 on detailed regulations on standards, procedures for considering and recognizing "Wards meeting urban civilized standards" and "Towns meeting urban civilized standards", up to now, the whole province has 23 urban areas, of which 1 city is a type I urban area, 1 type III urban area and 3 type IV urban areas; 18 type V urban areas, including 16 district urban areas and 2 towns: Son Hai (Quynh Luu) and Song Dinh (Quy Hop). The total number of wards and towns in the area is 49 units...

Before Decision No. 04/2022 of the Prime Minister oncivilized urban criteriaSince 2007, the Provincial People's Committee has issued Decision No. 4566/QD-UBND approving the development of the urban system, accordingly, the whole province has 144 urban areas of all types. Up to now, 128/144 urban areas have had their master plans approved, reaching 88.9%; localities are continuing to develop the planning of the remaining urban areas (towns).

The rate of waste classification, collection and treatment is a difficult and challenging criterion for urban districts today. In the photo: The waste collection site for classification before treatment in Cau Giat town (Quynh Luu). Photo: Nguyen Hai

Regarding solid waste collection and treatment: On average, there are nearly 1,600 tons of waste per day in the area, of which solid waste in urban areas is 488 tons per day, but the collection rate of domestic solid waste is only 70.24%, and in urban areas it is only 96.5%, and in rural areas it is only 60%; 34 urban areas of type IV or higher have invested in centralized domestic wastewater treatment systems; 40/49 wards and towns have planned land areas for cultural-sports centers and standard sports grounds...

Investing in ditches to bury telecommunications and electricity cables on the sidewalk of Vinh-Cua Lo Avenue. Photo: Nguyen Hai

In addition to the above positive results, at the conference, representatives of the People's Committee of Vinh city, Hoang Mai town, Thai Hoa town and a number of wards and towns spoke about the results of investment and urban beautification in recent times; at the same time, they pointed out some difficulties and limitations in the process of implementing investment in urban infrastructure construction in general and civilized urban criteria in particular.

Concluding the conference, Comrade Bui Dinh Long - Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee agreed with the assessment report and some proposals of the Department of Culture and Sports on the results of implementing civilized urban criteria in the past time. Based on the results, the Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee frankly pointed out some limitations and causes for departments, branches and localities to make efforts to find investment solutions and remove obstacles. Compared to the construction of New Rural Areas, there are criteria and accompanying resources, but the promulgation of criteria for civilized urban standards is quite high, there is no mechanism for accompanying resources.

Renovating old apartments is a topic that attracts the attention of people and beautifies Vinh City's urban area. Photo: Nguyen Hai

Therefore, in the coming time, to effectively implement Decision No. 04/QD-TTg on urban construction according to civilized criteria in the province for the period 2023-2025 and orientation to 2030, the Provincial People's Committee has drafted an implementation plan, which states 6 goals and 8 groups of solutions, but departments, branches and localities must have drastic direction solutions to effectively implement the set goals.

The province will establish a separate Steering Committee for this field, but it is recommended that localities develop a Plan and register to implement specific targets and criteria; review and evaluate which ones are easy and cost less to implement first, self-evaluate which ones are achieved and which ones are not achieved to have a plan to overcome, and call for resource mobilization for implementation; each locality should choose a ward, town or street to serve as a pilot.

Comrade Bui Dinh Long - Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee delivered a concluding speech at the conference. Photo: Nguyen Hai

Nguyen Hai