Building new rural areas in mountainous areas: Still far from the target

(Baonghean) - After more than 5 years of implementing the National Target Program on New Rural Construction (NTM) for the period 2011 - 2015, the rural areas of our province have seen many improvements, infrastructure has been invested in and built solidly, people's lives have been gradually improved... However, in mountainous areas, NTM construction is still a difficult problem because the completion rate of criteria is still quite low.

The difficulties

According to the Provincial Office for Coordination of New Rural Construction, the province has more than 200 communes in 11 mountainous districts and towns implementing the New Rural Construction Program. After 5 years of implementing the New Rural Construction Program, the completion of New Rural Construction criteria in mountainous communes is quite low compared to the average level of the whole province. Notably, 3 districts: Que Phong, Quy Chau and Ky Son have no communes meeting the New Rural Construction standards; 2 districts: Tuong Duong and Con Cuong, each district has only 1 commune reaching the New Rural Construction target. Up to this point, out of a total of more than 200 communes building New Rural Construction in 11 mountainous districts, only 31 communes have met 19/19 New Rural Construction criteria, out of a total of 110 communes reaching the New Rural Construction target of the province. Criteria such as: Poverty rate, income, market, environment... in mountainous communes still have a large gap compared to communes in the plains.

More than 70% of the traffic routes of Yen Khe commune (Con Cuong) have been concreted.

The reasons are due to many factors, including the very low starting point of mountainous communes, leading to difficulties in organizing production development and creating livelihoods to increase people's income. The rate of farming households in mountainous communes that are poor and lack capital for production is still high, and the acquisition of scientific and technical knowledge is still limited. A significant number of ethnic minority households are still passive and lack the capacity to strive to escape poverty. The number of households that escape poverty and are at risk of falling back into poverty each year is still very high, and the results of poverty reduction are not yet sustainable.

In addition, the production practices of people in mountainous areas are still backward, the cultivated land area is small, mainly hilly and forest land, difficult to produce; production in some areas is still spontaneous, following the movement, there are not many models of concentrated commodity production. The number of enterprises in the commune is not large, the scale is not large, so the ability to attract labor, create budget revenue is not high, poverty reduction, and income improvement for people is not easy to overcome. Therefore, the mobilization of the whole people to join hands to build new rural areas in mountainous districts, although supported by the people, material contributions are very difficult, while many criteria for building new rural areas need financial investment to complete, such as: Traffic, community cultural houses, irrigation. Knowing that, in the past, there were villages and hamlets, in addition to the support of the state, people agreed to contribute human and financial resources to concrete internal roads in a drastic and effective manner. But that number is not much compared to actual demand.

In addition to income and poor household criteria, the criteria that mountainous communes find difficult to complete are: Traffic, irrigation, markets, environment... According to regulations, to be recognized as meeting traffic criteria, the locality must achieve 70% of the total length of roads in the area being concreted and hardened. However, most of the mountainous communes are mountainous areas, the population is scattered and not concentrated, the people's lives are still difficult, the poverty rate is high, so the mobilization of people to contribute to the construction of traffic roads is still very limited; leading to many difficulties in investing in traffic construction in the mountainous communes of the province.

Need special support mechanism

Mr. Lang Van Minh - Vice Chairman of Que Phong District People's Committee said: In recent years, in addition to capital from the National Target Program on New Rural Construction supported by the Central Government and the province, the district has also combined it with other capital sources from Program 30a, Program 135/CP... to invest in production development and increase income for local people. However, due to the low economic and social starting point of the communes, although priority is given to production support and poverty reduction, the poverty rate of people in many communes is still above 30%.

Due to the high number of poor households, the mobilization of resources from the people cannot be implemented, making it difficult to implement the infrastructure criteria of the communes. In addition, finding resources to invest in infrastructure and build essential works is also a difficult problem for communes building new rural areas in the locality. The district proposed that the province and the Central Government consider and have special policies to prioritize support for disadvantaged mountainous communes to invest in building infrastructure and developing production to soon complete the new rural criteria.

Renovating mixed gardens to grow green beans in Thach Giam commune (Tuong Duong).

Faced with these practical difficulties, in early 2016, our province had a policy to direct mountainous districts to build new rural areas from villages and hamlets. Accordingly, localities develop plans, and villages and hamlets register to build new rural areas according to the roadmap. In early April, the provincial People's Committee issued Decision No. 1263/QD-UBND of the provincial People's Committee on temporary regulations on the set of criteria for new rural hamlets and hamlets applicable in mountainous communes of the province. According to this regulation, hamlets and hamlets only implement 14 new rural criteria, districts direct communes to select hamlets and hamlets to implement; make plans, monitor, inspect, urge; annually organize appraisal, evaluation and decide to recognize hamlets and hamlets that meet new rural standards. Currently, the provincial New Rural Coordination Office is implementing documents to guide mountainous localities in implementing new rural hamlets and hamlets.

From the difficulties of mountainous communes, the current issue is that the State needs to have a specific mechanism to support production development to suit the production conditions of people in mountainous communes with difficulties. Increase support for high-quality plant and animal varieties, form concentrated production areas in the direction of farms and family farms. There needs to be policies to support capital, improve production and business capacity for cooperatives, cooperative groups, and new production organization models to support people in remote, isolated and mountainous areas in the value chain from production to consumption of agricultural and forestry products. At the same time, all levels and sectors also need to prioritize the implementation, application and replication of scientific and technological models in difficult and mountainous communes.

Xuan Hoang