Resettlement areas plan approved

HCM CITY — The HCM City People's Committee has approved a plan to develop two resettlement areas for residents who are living in Binh Khanh and An Thoi Dong communes in Can Gio District, two areas that are at risk of landslides.

Under the detailed plan, residents living in those communes will be moved to Co Dau and Ca Chay resettlement areas in Binh Khanh and An Thoi Dong communes, respectively.

The city People's Committee has urged Can Gio District People's Committee to submit a plan to develop infrastructure projects in the Co Dau and Ca Chay resettlement areas according to the standards set by the Government for "new rural areas".

In addition, the Can Gio District People's Committee has been asked to complete and submit the audited accounts of the projects' costs to the city committee as soon as possible.

The city committee has also approved a proposal from the city's Department of Finance to offer each resettled household a 100-square-metre plot of land.

Resettled households would be exempted from paying land-use fees.

Resettled households will also receive VND40 million (US$2,100) to cope with any natural calamities, according to the plan.

The city's Department of Planning and Architecture was also asked to conduct research on and design houses or apartments for resettled households in accordance with the standards for the new rural areas. The findings are expected to be submitted to the city by early this month.

The city's Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs is responsible for conducting research on special cases of poor households that must be resettled.

In addition to these projects, the HCM City People's Committee has approved another plan to build 500 resettlement apartments for families displaced by the project to urbanise the Thu Thiem Bridge area, and 850 apartments for a resettlement project in Ward 12 in Binh Thanh District.

The city committee has asked Binh Thanh District People's Committee to work with departments and agencies to draft a detailed plan on how to move households who live along rivers and canals in the district.

The families will have to be resettled to make way for a project to upgrade Thanh Da residential area in Ward 27 in Binh Thanh District.

The district committee has been urged to finish the projects by 2015. — VNS

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Land key to ethnic settlement

A corner of the resettlement area for Gia Rai ethic minority people in Chu Se District in the Central Highland province of Gia Lai. Ethnic minority people still find it difficult to give up their moving around to find cultivation land because there are not many better alternatives. — VNA/VNS Photo Sy Huynh

HCM CITY— Efforts to help ethnic minorities adopt a sedentary lifestyle and stop shifting cultivation have not been effective so far because viable alternatives have not been provided, a new report says.

This conclusion was presented in a report prepared by the ministries of Finance; Agriculture and Rural Development; and Planning and Investment in co-operation with the National Assembly's Nationalities Council.

The report follows a two-month supervision of the assistance policy being implemented to help ethnic minority people improve their lives.

Limited capital, a shortage of land for settlement, cultivation and lack of clarity about the ethnic minorities eligible to receive the Government's support were recognised as major challenges in implementing the assistance policies, the report said.

The policy has been applied in 24 provinces that have local residents practising shifting cultivation.

A sum of VND572 billion (US$29 million) was allocated to assist an estimated 9,000 households. However, the number of households needing assistance was later revised to 30,000.

"We should define clearly who really need assistance as well as who are wandering cultivation farmers," said Ksor Phuoc, head of the council.

According to the report, the construction of resettlement areas is very slow with only 42 per cent or 126 out of 297 projects completed so far. By the end of last year, only four provinces had partly finished their work after two years of implementing the policy.

It was hard to find flat land in mountainous provinces to build resettlement areas and the State budget was not able to provide the planned capital for these projects, the report said.

"There are so many difficulties, especially in finding agricultural and resettlement land, along with shortage of capital for infrastructure construction and production," said Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Minh Quang.

He said that if local authorities were not able to prepare good resettlement areas and land for cultivation, ethnic minorities would continue to practise shifting cultivation.

"We should focus on each detail of a project to resettle local residents and capital should be provided from the beginning of the year," said Ha Hung, deputy head of the nationalities council. — VNS

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