There are still violations in mobilizing new rural construction in Nghe An.

On the afternoon of November 29, the Economic - Budget Committee of the People's Council conducted an examination of the report on the implementation results of the National Target Program on New Rural Construction in 2019 and the plan for 2020. Photo: Mai Hoa

Mobilizing over 6.9 trillion VND to build new rural areas

According to the report of the Provincial Office of New Rural Areas, the movement to build new rural areas in the province in 2019 continued to be promoted in localities.

The whole province mobilized over 6.9 trillion VND to build new rural areas; of which capital contributed by the people was nearly 964 billion VND, accounting for nearly 14%.

In addition, people also voluntarily donated nearly 900,000 square meters of land of all kinds and more than 1.4 million working days.

By October 2019, the province had 12 more communes appraised by the province, of which 7 communes had been recognized by the Provincial People's Committee as meeting the standards; bringing the total number of communes meeting the NTM standards in the province to 225, accounting for 52.20%.

Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Council Hoang Viet Duong said that the report that there is no outstanding debt in the province for basic construction in the new rural construction is not accurate. Photo: Mai Hoa

In addition to mobilizing resources for investment in building new rural areas, localities have also paid attention to handling outstanding debts in basic construction in building new rural areas. As of the end of 2015, the outstanding debt in basic construction of the new rural program in the whole province was 751 billion VND, an average of 1.74 billion VND/commune.

Many problems and limitations

Participating in reviewing the report, members of the Economic - Budget Committee of the Provincial People's Council raised many issues of concern.

Hung Nguyen District Party Secretary Hoang Van Phi said that building a new rural area is a continuous process and often when the new rural area program is completed, localities have "done their best" and to ensure the improvement of the criteria after recognition, the province needs to have a financial support policy to encourage it.

On the other hand, currently the model new rural communes in the province do not have their own policies to promote them.

In 2019, the whole province mobilized more than 6.9 trillion VND to build new rural areas. Illustration photo: Mai Hoa

Concerned about the outstanding debt of basic construction in the new rural area, Deputy Head of the Legal Committee of the Provincial People's Council Thai Thi An Chung said that she did not find it convincing when the Provincial New Rural Area Office reported that the outstanding debt of the new rural area in the province had been cleared, because recently, through a survey on the arrangement of commune-level administrative units in a locality where 3 communes had to be merged into 1 commune, all 3 communes had outstanding debt of new rural area construction, at least 5 billion VND/commune.

Regarding the merger of blocks, hamlets, and villages, the Deputy Head of the Legal Department also recommended that the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development should soon provide guidance to localities on the use of cultural and sports facilities that have met NTM standards in the merged units, to avoid wasting investment resources.

The Deputy Head of the Economic - Budget Committee of the Provincial People's Council requested the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development to pay attention to income criteria in building new rural areas to ensure sustainable development programs. Photo: Mai Hoa

Also concerned about the shortcomings in the construction of new rural areas, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Council Hoang Viet Duong pointed out the situation of some localities having violations in mobilizing resources for new rural construction and suggested that the Provincial People's Committee should review and proactively handle them. On the other hand, it is necessary to study and propose solutions and measures to promote the progress of new rural construction in mountainous areas and ethnic minority areas.

Referring to the substance and sustainability of new rural construction, Deputy Head of the Culture - Social Committee of the Provincial People's Council Nguyen Thi Lan said that the factors and conditions for recognizing a commune as meeting new rural standards include the criteria of national standard schools and cultural villages; however, through monitoring in some localities, there are many standard schools and cultural villages that have expired but have not been re-recognized, which means that the title is no longer recognized...

Based on the opinions of the members, the chairman of the review, Cao Tien Trung - Deputy Head of the Economic - Budget Committee, requested the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development to take into account the opinions of the members participating in the review to supplement and complete the report; in which, it is important to propose tasks and solutions to overcome existing problems and limitations. Along with that, it is important to pay attention to reviewing the outstanding debts of basic construction in the new rural areas to ensure accuracy; thereby building a specific debt repayment plan; at the same time, focusing on the work of checking "after" the recognition of the new rural areas, thereby promptly urging and directing the maintenance and improvement of the new rural standards in localities...