Problems in land acquisition and clearance for Dong Dong Reservoir Project

After a long period of implementation, the Dong Dong Reservoir Project (Van Don District) is still "inactive". Although the land acquisition has been announced, many households have not yet received compensation for land acquisition. Voters request the province to pay attention and direct a final solution to ensure the rights of the people.

The households have petitioned the authorities many times, but have not received a final resolution.

Dong Dong Reservoir Project was approved for investment in late 2015; total area of 690ha, including reservoir, water treatment plant and water pipeline; total investment of 500 billion VND; implemented in Van Yen and Binh Dan communes (Van Don district).

Initially, the project investor was 389 Mountain Lake Construction Investment Joint Stock Company. However, due to many difficulties, the project could not be implemented, the Provincial People's Committee selected Van Don Sun Joint Stock Company as the replacement investor from March 22, 2021. According to the contract, the project implementation period is 30 months (from July 15, 2021 to January 15, 2024), including 6 months for site clearance.

However, the project is still "standing still". Although the land acquisition announcement was made a long time ago, many households have not yet received compensation, affecting the lives and livelihoods of the people. The house of Ms. Nguyen Thi Thuy's family (village 10/10, Van Yen commune) was built a long time ago and is seriously degraded, but because it is part of the project's planning, it cannot be repaired or rebuilt. When the announcement of the forestry land acquisition was made, her family did not affect the forest, even though part of the forest area was broken by the recent storm No. 3, to wait for compensation. Ms. Thuy said: I hope the government and the investor will quickly support the payment of compensation for land acquisition so that we can stabilize our lives.

Some forest areas in the Project planning area were burned on October 9, 2024.

According to the report of Van Don District People's Committee, the main reason for the delay in implementing the Project is that the land acquisition work has not been completed; the investor has not yet extracted the land plot, and has not yet arranged funds to pay the people. Of the total 123 affected households, only 60 households have received compensation for land acquisition; 39 households in Binh Dan commune and 24 households in Van Yen commune have not yet received compensation support for land acquisition.

Mr. Lieu Van Quan (Vong Tre village, Binh Dan commune) said: Storm No. 3 has destroyed all of my family's crops. It is the dry season, if we are not allowed to harvest the fallen trees, a forest fire is very likely to occur, causing huge property damage. In fact, on October 1, a forest fire broke out in the Dong Dong lake area, causing heavy damage to many households. We request that the locality and the investor develop a compensation plan to support the people. At the same time, people are allowed to harvest all the acacia forests that have been counted, and have a land recovery decision; consider supporting damage caused by the storm.

The house of Ms. Nguyen Thi Thuy (village 10/10, Van Yen commune) has degraded but must be kept in its current state because it is included in the Project planning.

At the meeting on September 18, 2024 with Van Don district and related units, the Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee requested Van Don Sun Joint Stock Company to complete the payment to households that have compensation plans in September 2024. For households that have not been counted, the investor needs to hire a consulting unit to carry out land plot extraction and develop a counting plan, to be completed in October 2024. The District People's Committee needs to complete the approval of the compensation plan in November 2024 so that the investor can pay the remaining households in December 2024. For the area assigned to the investor where the trees are broken, the people will recover it themselves according to the 2024 Land Law. The district also needs to quickly deploy support for forest households damaged by storm No. 3 according to Decree No. 02/2017/ND-CP of the Government .

Source