No more muddy, degraded village roads thanks to campaign to create new mark in Phong Hoa commune

The roads "wear new clothes"

Visiting Tu village (Phong Hoa commune) on a cool early autumn morning, the first impression was the wide concrete roads, especially the road with beautiful and peaceful shade of flowers. From the introduction to the handshake with the Secretary of the Tu village Party Cell - Nguyen Khoa May, I faintly heard behind me a confession that Phong Hoa had just been "designated" as a ward, and soon this countryside would be filled with the breath of the city.

Showing us around the village, Mr. Doan Van Dinh, Head of Tu village, gently said: "In my hometown, when it's sunny, we go by car, when it's raining, we go by boat. But that was a few years ago, but now the roads here have completely changed."

Tu village is located along the O Lau river, the people mainly do agriculture combined with craft village services. Since 2015, when the commune had a policy of building roads based on the people's strength, the village executive committee met to discuss and clear up ideas with the motto "Party members go first, the village follows". From there, the village conveyed the idea to the people and agreed on the plan as well as the budget. Initially, there were households who were hesitant but did not back down because they found it difficult, the village party committee and command coordinated with the Front's working committee to step up propaganda and explain to the people clearly according to the motto "people know, people discuss, people do... and people benefit".

Concrete road discussed, made and enjoyed by people in Phong Hoa commune

Again, gently, Mr. Dinh said that, in the past 10 years, Tu village has mobilized nearly ten billion VND to build village and hamlet roads. In which, many households voluntarily donated land, moved back to make the village road wider and higher without anyone thinking about compensation.

Ms. Le Thi Gia, one of the households donating land here, shared: "Although we know that every inch of land is worth its weight in gold, having a new, wide road makes the neighborhood, village, and our house beautiful, so we don't consider the pros and cons."

Recently, Tu village boldly registered with the commune to enjoy a special mechanism to open a route through the center, more than 700m long, 7.5m wide, with sidewalks and flower beds on both sides. When drafting, everyone was worried because the cost was nearly 4 billion VND (including the support of cement and sand from the district and commune). So the village mobilization committee had to go through many meetings and reviews, and finally agreed to collect 600,000 VND/person (in the village there are nearly 130 households with more than 500 people). Although this route is only 50% complete, early in the morning or late in the afternoon, there are always people walking around and chatting happily.

Next to Tu village is Cang Tu Nam village, located next to the ancient village of Phuoc Tich, which has boldly followed the movement of "building new roads and expanding old roads" for many years. Up to now, Cang Tu Nam has 100% of village roads and alleys concreted.

Mr. Bui Quang Nghi, Head of this village, shared that most of the people here are poor, but when they heard about upgrading and expanding the traffic roads, they all responded. Recently, the village opened a new road of more than 850m long, 5m wide, not including the sidewalk. When implementing, nearly 50 households were affected by land, houses, fences, trees... with an area of nearly 1,000m2 being recovered, but 100% were still happy not to receive compensation. Not only that, the people also paid an additional fee of 2.5 million VND per household to hire workers and machinery to complete the road.

Sharing the secret of "skillful mass mobilization", Mr. Bui Quang Nghi, who has more than 20 years of experience in "blowing the trumpet and the whole village" said: There is no great secret other than "taking the people as the root" and the pioneering role of cadres and party members from small to big things.

Agree with the Party's will and the people's will

Determining the expansion of roads as a breakthrough to create the premise for building new rural areas (NTM) since 2011, the campaign "building new roads, expanding old roads" in Phong Hoa was born from that. When reaching the NTM commune finish line in 2019, Phong Hoa was one step ahead in determining the criteria to become a ward and the above campaign is currently being promoted again.

Discussing the campaign implementation, Mr. Doan Van Quoc, Chairman of Phong Hoa Commune People's Committee, shared that Phong Hoa is a low-lying area located next to the O Lau River, so whenever it rains, it floods. Therefore, the roads here quickly deteriorate and become a bottleneck in the "rain or boat" traffic "map" in the northern part of the province. A few years ago, every time the traffic criteria in building a new rural commune were discussed, local officials, Party committees, and authorities all "sticked out their tongues". Therefore, when hearing that the district and province had a special mechanism for road construction, in Phong Hoa, from high to low officials, they unanimously did not miss the opportunity.

Recalling that time, the Chairman of Phong Hoa Commune People's Committee said: "Hearing the above mechanism for road construction, people from old to young in Phong Hoa felt more confident, there was a new breakthrough in the local socio -economic situation".

From that event, many meetings were held from the Party Committee, the government, and the village members; then from the village to each household to unify the policy. The good thing has become a habit in Phong Hoa when implementing each route, the Party Committee, the local government established teams, groups, every week including Saturdays and Sundays, assigned to the villages to discuss, consider if there are difficulties, and together resolve them so that the routes are formed according to the Party's will and the people's wishes.

In line with that viewpoint and spirit, from 2016 to now, Phong Hoa has upgraded and built nearly 30km of roads of all kinds, of which in the past 3 years, Phong Hoa has had 8km of spacious, high-quality inter-village roads, reaching more than 96% of the roads in the commune being concreted.

In addition to the concrete village routes established under a special mechanism, Phong Hoa is currently implementing 3 model inter-village routes, including the route from National Highway 49 - Niem village, 2.7km long, costing 13.5 billion VND; the Trung Co Me village route, 1.2km long, costing 3 billion VND; the Ba Bau Cho village - Niem village route, 3km long, costing 8 billion VND. All of these routes are over 7m wide and are proactively cleared by the people. At this point, 2 routes have been basically completed but have not heard any "buzz" from the grassroots, even though the number of donated land, houses, and trees is up to tens of billions of VND.

Many people joke but it is very true, with the campaign "building new roads, expanding old roads", there is another new step to create momentum for Phong Hoa commune to become a ward in 2024.

Article and photos: Minh Van