Delegate Mai Van Hai (Thanh Hoa National Assembly Delegation): Need to clarify railway network planning

National Assembly Deputy Mai Van Hai, Provincial Party Committee member, Deputy Head of the National Assembly Delegation of Thanh Hoa province participated in giving comments on the draft Law.

Participating in giving comments, National Assembly Deputy Mai Van Hai, Provincial Party Committee member, Deputy Head of the National Assembly Delegation of Thanh Hoa province agreed with the Government's Submission and the Review Report of the Committee on Science, Technology and Environment on the draft Law on Railways (amended).

Commenting on the State's preferential and support policies for railway development stipulated in Article 5, delegates said that this is a very important content, with many new points that will contribute to removing "bottlenecks" in capital, attracting resources, especially social investment resources to develop the railway network.

The draft law also reflects the spirit of Resolution No. 68 of the Politburo on private economic development. The incentive mechanisms in the draft law are expected to unlock investment resources and gradually modernize our country's railway network.

However, to ensure the strictness and feasibility of the draft law, delegate Mai Van Hai suggested: Clause 7 needs to clarify why only organizations participating in railway business activities are entitled to incentives, but there is no policy for individuals when participating in railway business. Meanwhile, the draft law is also proposing policies to encourage, support, and create conditions for domestic and foreign organizations and individuals to invest and do business in railway infrastructure and railway business.

According to the delegate, it is necessary to separate two policies: Policy for infrastructure business and policy for railway transport business. These are two different business fields, so there needs to be appropriate incentive mechanisms and policies for each field.

Furthermore, in order for the policy to be put into practice and used for the right purposes and effectively, delegates suggested that the Government should specify the conditions and standards for individuals and organizations to access development investment support from the State budget and access preferential credit capital for organizations and individuals participating in railway business activities in areas with difficult and especially difficult socio-economic conditions.

Commenting on the railway network planning stipulated in Clause 1, Article 20, the delegate said that the railway network planning is a national sectoral planning, serving as a basis for orienting investment, development, and exploitation of the national railway network. The draft regulation decentralizing the Minister of Construction to organize the establishment, appraisal, and approval of the railway network planning is a strong decentralization step, aiming to shorten the time for establishment, appraisal, and planning of the railway network, but this is the authority of the Prime Minister as stipulated in the 2017 Planning Law. Therefore, the delegate suggested that this issue should be clarified to avoid conflicts and overlaps in approval authority.

To specify the planning of the railway network, Clause 2, Article 20 of the draft Law only mentions the planning of railway lines and railway stations as specialized technical planning, made for the national railway, but does not mention the planning of other auxiliary works of the railway network. The plan for developing local railways and specialized railways stipulated in Clause 3 is a content in regional planning, provincial planning, urban and rural planning, but there is no specific direction on the content of the plan.

Therefore, regarding the content of railway planning, delegates proposed to consider the regulation of planning content, including the orientation content on building railway development plans integrated into regional and provincial planning.

Commenting on the planning adjustment specified in Article 23, delegates completely agreed with the content of establishing, appraising, and approving the adjustment of railway projects, railway industrial complex projects, and resettlement to serve land clearance for railway projects. If there are changes compared to the relevant planning, the project will be approved without having to carry out planning adjustment procedures; the relevant planning must be promptly updated accordingly and announced according to regulations.

The regulations as drafted will shorten the time to handle administrative procedures, resolve practical problems when having to adjust planning, speed up site clearance and shorten the time to establish investment projects. However, according to delegates, if there are no strict regulations, it is easy to take advantage of policies, approve adjustments against regulations, leading to disruption of the initially approved planning. Therefore, it is proposed that there should be specific regulations to control and monitor and clearly define the scale of which type of railway is applicable.

Quoc Huong

Source: https://baothanhhoa.vn/dai-bieu-mai-van-hai-doan-dbqh-thanh-hoa-can-lam-ro-quy-hoach-mang-luoi-duong-sat-252565.htm