Ensure land policy for

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has just organized a workshop to collect opinions on land policies for ethnic minorities in the Draft Law on Land (amended). Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Le Minh Ngan chaired the workshop. Attending the workshop were representatives of a number of committees of the National Assembly, ministries, central branches and a number of localities.

In recent times, the Party and the State have had many policies and guidelines to ensure stable residential and production land for ethnic minorities, especially in border areas and localities with difficult and extremely difficult economic conditions. However, the summary of the 2013 Land Law shows that the implementation of the policy of allocating residential and production land to ethnic minorities still has many limitations.

Land policy creates livelihoods for people.

According to the Ethnic Committee, in the period of 2016 - 2020, the whole country supported 9,523 households with residential land with an area of 72 hectares; 3,900 households were supported with production land with an area of 1,283 hectares. Thereby, ethnic minority households have stabilized their housing, have production land, have jobs to earn a living, gradually stabilize their lives, reduce the rate of spontaneous nomadic households from 29,718 nomadic households in 2009 to 9,300 nomadic households in 2021.

However, the implementation of this work still faces some difficulties. Specifically, in previous stages, although there were many programs, projects, and policies to support residential and production land, due to limited allocated resources, most of the targets were not completed. In particular, many localities no longer have land funds to grant; in some places, land prices are too high, and the support level according to current regulations cannot be implemented.

According to Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Le Minh Ngan, one of the limitations of this is that the 2013 Land Law does not design a planning, land recovery mechanism and budgetary financial mechanism to ensure the implementation of this policy. In addition, although the Land Law and its implementing documents stipulate the allocation of land to ethnic minorities, when land is allocated for the second time, the right to use the land is limited (within 10 years, after which it can be transferred).

However, in reality, there are cases where ethnic minorities transfer land before the deadline and the transferee waits until the 10-year deadline to complete the procedures, which leads to ethnic minorities continuing to have no land for production, not ensuring policy goals...

Faced with that situation, the Standing Secretariat and the Government have directed the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to review and supplement the land policy for ethnic minorities in the Draft Land Law (amended).

According to Deputy Minister Le Minh Ngan, implementing the direction of the Standing Secretariat and the Government, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has reviewed and absorbed the opinions of National Assembly Deputies at the 5th Session of the 15th National Assembly and the people's opinions to perfect the land policy for ethnic minorities in the Draft Land Law (amended).

Accordingly, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment plans to propose amendments and supplements to a number of provisions in the Draft Law on Land (amended), such as: supplementing prohibited acts of land management agencies in allocating and leasing land to subjects not entitled to the State's support policies for ethnic minorities; regulating prohibited acts of subjects transferring and receiving transfers of land allocated or leased by the State under the land support policy for ethnic minorities; regulating land recovery plans to create land funds for allocation and lease to ethnic minorities; regulating land recovery to resolve residential land and production land for ethnic minorities; regulating financial mechanisms for implementation...

At the workshop, delegates basically agreed with the proposed proposals of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and said that the regulations have basically resolved the difficulties in implementing land policies for ethnic minorities in the locality, while focusing on giving comments on contents such as: prohibited acts, land recovery for allocation to ethnic minorities, financial mechanisms... based on actual conditions in the locality.

Resolution No. 88/2019/QH14, dated November 18, 2019, of the 14th National Assembly on the Master Plan for Socio-Economic Development of Ethnic Minority and Mountainous Areas for the 2021-2030 period, sets the goal of basically completing the work of sedentarization and resettlement by 2025; arranging and stabilizing 90% of households that migrated without planning. Basically solving the shortage of residential land and production land for ethnic minorities.

Agreeing with the proposed amendments of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Vice Chairman of the Ethnic Council Quang Van Huong said that the amendments and supplements to the Land Law this time must resolve difficulties and problems regarding residential land and production land for ethnic minorities and mountainous areas; review and reclaim land from ineffective farms and forestry farms to create a land fund to support ethnic minority households.

After listening to the comments, Deputy Minister Le Minh Ngan, on behalf of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and the drafting agency, thanked and fully accepted the comments in a responsible, practical, and valuable manner so that the drafting agency could absorb and perfect this policy in the Draft Land Law (amended) to report to competent authorities for consideration and decision.

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