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Local governments of many districts in Binh Dinh and relevant authorities have made and carried out plans of building resettlement houses for evacuees from dangerous landslide-prone areas. Binh Dinh Newspaper interviews Mr. Hoang Xuan Binh, Deputy Chief of Rural Development Office, Binh Dinh Department of Agriculture – Rural Development about this.
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The resettlement area in My An commune, Phu My district. Photo N.H
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* Can you tell us about how are the projects of people evacuation from the dangerous landslide-prone areas going to be implemented this year?
In 2011, the office together with the local governments keeps on invests 15 billion VND in the building of the resettlement houses with allocated budgets from the central and provincial governments. To give specific examples, infrastructure of a resettlement complex at Hoai Hai commune (Hoai Nhon district) in the 2nd phase is being built with total investment of 5 billion VND; a resettlement complex at An Tin commune (Hoai An) with 2.4 billion VND; Go Sat resettlement complex at An Thanh commune, Hoai An district with 1 billion VND; a resettlement complex at My Duc commune, Phu My district with 1.6 billion VND; a resettlement complex at Nhon Hai commune, Quy Nhon city with 3 billion VND; a resettlement complex at Huynh Gian hamlet, Phuoc Hoa commune, Tuy Phuoc district with 1 billion VND; Bau Ho resettlement complex at Hoai Hoang commune, Hoai Nhon district with 1 billion VND.
The land clearance for the resettlement building at Hoai Hai commune (Hoai Nhon district) has been basically finished. Water supply system, road network and other infrastructure works are being built and expected to be ready for receiving the evacuees before this flood and storm season. Other resettlement complexes have been promptly constructed as well and expected to finish by June 30. The target evacuees will be allocated land plots to build their houses before this stormy season.
From 2006 to 2010, Binh Dinh built total 16 resettlement complexes which covered a total area of more than 50 hectares. 2,428 households were allocated land with average area of 180-200 square metre per plot. Total investment for the infrastructure construction was 78 billion VND, in which 69 billion VND from the central government’s budget and the rest 9 billion VND from the provincial budget.
*We know that many residents at the landslide-prone areas haven’t moved to the resettlement places while the construction of several resettlement complexes is slow. Can you please tell us the reasons?
Most of the residents at the landslide-prone areas agree with the resettlement policy because they all want to live in safe places. Yet, progress rate of the resettlement is slow due to some issues. Firstly, majority of the evacuees are poor, unable to move to the resettlement places, unable to build new houses. At the meantime, financial assistance from the governments for the evacuees is rather limited (10 million VND/household while the building of a new house costs from dozens to hundreds of millions of VND). Secondly, the evacuees are working as fishers or trading seafood by seaside. The resettlement places don’t have favourable conditions for their jobs. Some evacuees return their old places of living although they built new houses at the resettlement complexes. Thirdly, some local governments don’t assign clear tasks and responsibilities of residential arrangements to their officials.
* Given such difficulties, the office proposes what solutions?
We have just suggested the provincial People’s Committee and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development increasing the financial assistance to the evacuees (up to 20-40 million VND/household). We also suggested the central government increasing the budget for big capital projects. The central government should allocate the money timely and inform the local governments soon so that we can push up the approval of the projects, particularly unfinished ones, ensuring the evacuations before the stormy seasons.
* Binh Dinh Standing Committee of Flood and Storm Control says that the province has many landslide-prone and erosion-prone areas. What solutions does the office have for this problem?
The provincial People’s Committee lays down as policy the building of 23 more resettlement places for the evacuees all over the province by 2020. 16 projects of resettlement establishment will be implemented in 2011-2015 with total investment of 131.23 billion VND, for 1,639 households. The rest 7 projects are in 2015-2020. The office and the local governments in the province are promptly doing surveys, making plans and estimating investment costs of the projects in order to implement them immediately after receiving the allocated budgets.
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