Resolutely take action to speed up the construction progress of the North-South Expressway

Chairing from the Hanoi bridge point was comrade Le Van Thanh - Member of the Party Central Committee, Deputy Prime Minister. Also attending were representatives of ministries, branches, contractors and bridge points of 13 provinces where the expressway passes through.

Nghe An bridge point was chaired by comrade Le Hong Vinh - Member of the Provincial Party Committee, Permanent Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee; also attended by representatives of relevant departments, branches, districts and towns.

Overview of the online conference to speed up the progress of the North-South Expressway in October from Nghe An bridge. Photo: Nguyen Hai

Opening the conference, Deputy Prime Minister Le Van Thanh emphasized the need to speed up project progress.North-South Expresswayaccording to the commitments of ministries, branches and localities to the Government. Through the direction of removing specific difficulties and obstacles in the past time, the Government has determined, prioritized and allocated resources to accelerate the project's progress; promptly reported to the National Assembly to remove difficulties, the success of the project is the basis for the Government to submit to the National Assembly the next key component projects in 2022.

Next, the representative of the Ministry of Transport reported on the project implementation status, accordingly, 10/11 component projects have started; implementation results in the past month and remaining problems and obstacles in localities.

Current status of a proposed section of the North-South expressway through Hoang Mai Town (Nghe An). Photo: Document

In Nghe An, based on the accumulated capital of VND 2,503.7 billion, the province has planned to disburse VND 2,272.3 billion, of which 100% of capital was disbursed in 2019 and 2020, and VND 323.85 billion was disbursed in 2021, reaching 58.33%.

Up to now, 83.79/87.84 km have been cleared, reaching 95.39%, of which, 78.15/79.31 km of agricultural land have been cleared, reaching 98.54%; 5.64/8.53 km of residential land and garden land have been handed over, reaching 66.12%. The above locations have basically had their plans approved by the local authorities.compensation for land acquisitionBut households have not yet agreed and made recommendations on land prices at the departure and destination locations.

Of the 30 locations/606 resettled households (including 27 locations that must be built for resettlement and 3 interspersed locations), the province has completed 23 areas and organized lotteries to divide plots and allocate land to households in 21 areas; 3 areas have not been completed, 1 area in Dien Doai commune has people receiving money but is hindering construction because they have not received support for excavation and embankment costs.

According to the survey results, the demand for land for filling the highway through Nghe An is 13.5 million m3; currently, Nghe An province has licensed 40 mineral mines, of which 14 mines are in operation with a reserve of 21.515 million m3 and 26 mines are licensed with a reserve of about 35 million m3. Currently, the whole province has 75 licensed construction stone mines with a reserve of about 93.313 million m3, ensuring the material demand for the project is 2.68 million m3.(Source: Project Management Board 6)

North-South Expressway section through Tuy Loan. Photo: Internet document

Speaking at the conference, comrade Le Hong Vinh - Member of the Provincial Party Committee, Permanent Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee said: From mid-September to the first half of October, the province cleared an additional 1.3 km in length, an increase of 2% and currently the remaining volume that has not been handed over is 3.56 km.

The slow progress of site clearance is due to the fact that the residential land is subject to resettlement, people have received land and built houses but the old land has not been handed over, the complicated Covid-19 epidemic situation in the area has affected the progress of construction and resettlement implementation.

In addition, due to the increase in land prices, people have not yet agreed to receive compensation; the construction progress of some resettlement areas is still slow; the situation of land allocation without authority in some localities makes compensation and clearance more difficult.

Comrade Le Hong Vinh - Member of the Provincial Party Committee, Permanent Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee spoke from Nghe An bridge. Photo: Nguyen Hai

On the basis of listening to opinions from localities, ministries, branches and the Group,Deputy Prime Minister Le Van ThanhShare the difficulties of localities in completing procedures to convert forest use purposes, licensing quarries of soil and raw stone, using alternative filling materials, compensation and resettlement of households in epidemic conditions...

The Deputy Prime Minister emphasized that this is a national key project, and the Government will make the most of the preferential policies allowed to help localities. Therefore, he suggested that localities need to take more drastic action, working with ministries, branches and contractors to promptly remove difficulties and obstacles to bring the project to the finish line ahead of schedule. This result is the basis and premise for the Government to submit to the National Assembly the next component projects (phase 2) expected to be implemented in 2022./.