Priority support of 2,229 billion VND for extremely disadvantaged communes

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in 2015, priority support should be given to about 3,184 extremely disadvantaged communes, border communes, safe zone communes, and poor communes (subjects of priority allocation of government bond capital in Decision No. 195/QD-TTg dated January 25, 2013 and Decision No. 131/QD-TTg dated January 23, 2014 of the Prime Minister). The average support level is about 3 times higher than that of communes not subject to priority, with an estimated amount of VND 2,229 billion.

Based on this information, at the meeting of the Standing Committee of the National Target Program on New Rural Construction, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Van Ninh, Head of the Steering Committee, requested ministries and branches to find ways to allocate the central budget for 2016 four times higher than the current amount for disadvantaged communes in border areas, islands, and coastal areas in new rural construction; allocate resources to implement the program this year and in 2016; and amend and supplement a number of criteria for communes and districts meeting new rural standards.

Thanks to the Government's support program, many mountainous villages have changed their appearance. (Photo: Cong Kien).

Accordingly, opinions expressed agreement on amending and supplementing the NTM indicators and criteria to avoid waste in implementing resources. For example, it is not necessary for every commune to have a market or a standard community house, and it is not necessary for every highland commune to have internal roads when the cultivated land area is fragmented and divided...

Deputy Prime Minister Vu Van Ninh proposed that the revision of NTM criteria and targets will be implemented from 2016 onwards, but in principle, NTM standards will not be lowered. In the national criteria set, there should be a group of “hard” criteria (localities must implement) and a group of “soft” criteria (localities can implement flexibly). Along with that, ministries and branches should issue guidelines for localities to proactively implement.

Regarding resources to implement the program in the coming time, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Van Ninh requested the Ministries of Planning and Investment, Finance, and Agriculture and Rural Development to review and supplement. In 2016 alone, the Deputy Prime Minister suggested focusing on poor communes in border areas, islands, and coastal areas, increasing the amount by 4 times compared to the current amount.

Building internal roads in Tan Ky district (Photo: Xuan Hoang).

In particular, ministries and branches must require localities not to mobilize people in this area to contribute money to build new rural areas and vice versa, must have a policy to spend more on people's income when participating in building new rural works in the area, not to leave behind debts in basic construction in building new rural areas because of chasing achievements.

Also for the mountainous provinces, the Deputy Prime Minister assigned ministries to study the establishment of targets for the number of communes meeting NTM standards by 2020 depending on each region and area to avoid the situation of "targets exceeding the implementation capacity" of these difficult provinces.

According to chinhphu.vn