Centralized water supply works are not operating: The "problem" still awaits a solution

Currently, in the province, 67/254 centralized water supply works are not operating and cannot be restored. The commune authorities and the people hope that the relevant agencies will soon take measures to completely handle these works.

The water tank of the centralized domestic water supply project in Hiep Hoa hamlet, Phu Ly commune, has been abandoned for many years.

The water tank of the centralized domestic water supply project in Hiep Hoa hamlet, Phu Ly commune (Phu Luong) has been abandoned for many years.

The centralized domestic water supply project in Hiep Hoa hamlet, Phu Ly commune (Phu Luong) was built in 2010 with a designed capacity of 53m3/day and night, the water source is taken from the mountain stream, the total investment is over 580 million VND from the state budget.

However, after only nearly 4 years of operation and use, the project has been "shelved" until now. Mr. Hoang Van Sao, a resident in the hamlet, recalled: When the centralized water project in the hamlet was built, everyone was excited and actively participated in contributing labor during the construction process. However, after only a short time of use, the project was damaged and could not operate. Residents in the hamlet had to drill, dig wells or buy pipes to bring water from the mountain stream for use.

Due to lack of maintenance and repair, over time, the items have seriously degraded. The two water tanks are overgrown with weeds, leaves cover the surface of the tanks, and moss and mold cover the tanks. Some sections of water pipes were collected by the people and placed at the Village Cultural House. Mr. Nguyen Van Than, Secretary of the Phu Ly Commune Party Committee, informed: When designing the project, because there was no diagram of the water pipes from the mountain stream to the tanks, when building the traffic road and when people exploited wood, many sections of pipes were damaged. After many years of inactivity, in 2018, the commune requested the superiors to liquidate the project and return the production land to the people, because the project was built on land borrowed from the people.

Not only the Hiep Hoa hamlet centralized water project, in Phu Luong district, there are currently 9/26 centralized water projects that have not been operating for many years. Of which, 5 projects have been proposed for liquidation by communes since 2018 and 4 projects have been proposed since 2022.

Along with Phu Luong district, other localities also have many centralized domestic water projects that have not been operating for many years, such as Dong Hy district with 6 projects, Dai Tu district with 7 projects...

Currently, many centralized water supply projects in rural areas are a "burden" for communes. Because these are large assets that cannot be liquidated. On the other hand, water tanks and water pipes take up a lot of space, causing problems and difficulties when communes and hamlets build other infrastructure...

Mr. Nguyen Van Truong, Director of the Provincial Center for Domestic Water and Rural Environmental Sanitation, said: There are 196 centralized domestic water works in the province that are operating inefficiently and are not operating. To ensure meeting the people's domestic water needs, we are upgrading and building 23 new works managed by the Center.

At the same time, some localities are also allocating funds to maintain, repair and build new centralized water supply works. For inactive works, localities propose to liquidate them. In principle, these are works using budget capital. When liquidating or dismantling, there must be a policy, assessed, approved by competent authorities...

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