Vinh City has not merged wards and communes, expected to reduce 57 blocks and hamlets

On the morning of July 5, Vinh City Party Committee organized a dialogue conference between the Standing Committee of the City Party Committee and the Party Secretaries of wards and communes, and Party cell and hamlet secretaries.

Comrades: Phan Duc Dong - Member of the Provincial Party Standing Committee, Secretary of the Vinh City Party Committee; Nguyen Van Lu - Standing Deputy Secretary of the City Party Committee, Chairman of the City People's Council; Tran Ngoc Tu - Deputy Secretary of the City Party Committee, Chairman of the City People's Committee co-chaired the conference. Attending were Party secretaries of 25 wards and communes and 370 secretaries of block and hamlet Party cells in the city. Photo: Thu Giang

From now until 2021, Vinh city will not merge wards and communes.

Previously, to prepare for the conference, the Party Committees of wards and communes organized to collect opinions from cadres, party members and people on the implementation of tasks of party building, political system building, and socio-economic development in the city.

Opinions from the grassroots level paid much attention to the process of implementing the merger of wards, communes, and hamlets, suggesting that it is necessary to have focused and synchronous direction, not to let it drag on; to have a specific roadmap and time; and to strengthen propaganda so that people understand and support the merger policy.

Besides, there is a view that wards and communes should be merged first, then blocks and hamlets to make it more convenient for people to change information in their identification documents.

Blocks, hamlets, wards and communes that meet more than 50% of the criteria and are stable should not be merged. Blocks, hamlets, wards and communes that do not meet the criteria should be resolutely directed to merge.

When merging blocks and hamlets, it is necessary to consider factors such as geographical location, name, traditional history, especially cultural house planning. The government needs to have support measures to quickly carry out procedures to amend information on documents for people of merged blocks and hamlets...

Comrade Nguyen Van Lu - Standing Deputy Secretary of the City Party Committee, Chairman of the City People's Council informed the delegates about the implementation of Resolution 6 of the Central Committee, the plan to merge wards, communes, and hamlets of the city. Photo: Thu Giang

Discussing this issue, Vinh City Party Committee Standing Deputy Secretary Nguyen Van Lu affirmed that merging wards, communes, blocks and hamlets is a major policy of the Party and State, and is the core content of Resolution 6 of the Central Committee (12th tenure) to streamline the apparatus and reduce staff. The Province and City have directed resolutely and synchronously, with specific plans, schemes and implementation roadmaps.

Pursuant to Resolution No. 37-NQ/TW of the Politburo on the arrangement of administrative units at district and commune levels; Provincial and municipal plans, the merger of wards and communes will be carried out in two phases.

Phase 1 (2019-2021) merges wards, communes and towns that have not reached 50% of both area and population criteria.

Phase 2 (2022-2030) merges wards, communes, and towns in accordance with the administrative boundary planning of districts, cities, and towns. Ward criteria: Area 5.5 km2; population 7,000 people. Commune criteria: Area 15 km2; population 8,000 people.

Through review, the city has no wards or communes that need to be merged in phase 1. However, the policy of the City Party Committee and government is to still develop a plan and propose a plan to merge 2 wards to reduce the number of administrative units of wards and communes in the area.

However, when submitting to the province for comments, the plan to merge the city's wards was not approved because the area of ​​the merged ward unit was still too small (only reaching more than 25%) compared to the regulations. Therefore, in phase 1 from now until 2021, the city will not merge any wards or communes.

View of Vinh city. Photo archive

After the merger, the number of blocks and hamlets decreased from 371 to 314.

Regarding the merger of blocks and hamlets, comrade Nguyen Van Lu said that the construction of the merger plan and proposal to submit to the Department of Home Affairs for appraisal has been completed, expected to reduce from 371 blocks and hamlets at present to 314 blocks and hamlets after the merger.

The province and city directed that in 2019, the merger of blocks and hamlets that have not met 50% of the criteria for households according to regulations must be completed (blocks are 300 households and hamlets are 250 households).

Based on the proposals of the wards and communes, the City People's Committee conducted an appraisal and on June 13, 2019, the City People's Committee submitted a document to the Department of Home Affairs, the Provincial People's Committee, and the Provincial People's Council to approve the first phase of the city's block and hamlet merger plan, specifically: merging 84 blocks and hamlets to establish 42 new blocks and hamlets.

In the coming time, after completing the merger of blocks and hamlets, the City will direct functional departments, People's Committees of wards and communes, and related units to seriously implement the Resolution of the National Assembly Standing Committee, creating all favorable conditions for people to change documents quickly and conveniently./.