Why can't construction start when the procedures are completed?

While many projects lack capital to implement, the project to expand National Highway 46 (Nghe An) has been allocated enough capital and completed bidding procedures, but after more than 2 months, construction has not been able to start due to lack of land.

Construction has not started yet because there is no land.

Mr. Nguyen Van Long, Deputy Director of Project Management Board 85 (Ministry of Transport) said: The project to renovate and expand National Highway 46, Vinh - Nam Dan section, Nghe An province (abbreviated as QL46 Project) has selected a contractor since the end of 2024. However, up to now, because the locality has not handed over the site, the contractor has not been able to start construction.

National Highway 46 has been approved for 500 billion VND to upgrade and renovate to increase traffic capacity and ensure traffic safety.

According to Mr. Long, the minimum requirement to start construction of a project is to have at least 10% of the site cleared. We have marked and handed over the site clearance markers to the Nam Dan District Site Clearance Council to carry out the compensation steps according to regulations, from August 2024. Currently, the Board and the contractor are still waiting for the Nam Dan District Site Clearance Council to hand over the first meters of the site to start construction.

According to the reporter's records, the section of the route planned for renovation and upgrading only has some sections that pass through residential areas, with houses located on both sides of the road. The rest is land along the road corridor, fields and gardens. Meanwhile, on the route, vehicles run in a dense line, and some sections of the road surface have shown signs of deterioration.

Mr. Nguyen Viet Phuong, Head of Road Management Office II.2 (QLDB Area II) said: "In recent years, traffic volume on National Highway 46 has increased dramatically.

According to the unit's statistics, there are an average of 8,179 vehicles per day and night, causing the road to be overloaded. Currently, only the section from Vinh City to Muou Bridge has been widened to 4 lanes with a median strip. The rest is a two-lane mixed traffic road, so it becomes a bottleneck on the route and is often congested and blocked whenever there is an accident or traffic collision.

There are many sections on the route that pass through rice fields, but up to now the locality has not yet handed over the site to the investor and contractor to begin construction.

The delay in site clearance has caused the project to be delayed, making people angry.

Overcoming difficulties, striving to hand over enough land by mid-March to start the project

Explaining the reason for the delay in land acquisition, Mr. Tran Thanh Hai, Head of the Department of Agriculture and Environment, member of the Land Acquisition Council of Nam Dan district, said that there were two reasons why the land acquisition for the National Highway 46 project was slower than usual.

Firstly, the 2024 Land Law was promulgated and took effect from August 1, 2024, right at the time when the district was doing statistics, measuring, and making a plan for site clearance for the National Highway 46 project. Therefore, everything had to be temporarily suspended to wait for the decree, guiding circular, as well as the decision on compensation price from the province.

"The 2013 Land Law allows localities to pay support levels to people when they have to give up land for projects from 10 - 30% depending on the subject. By the 2024 Land Law, the support level is assigned to the province to decide for each specific project. Therefore, the waiting time for promulgation is extended by 15 - 30 days.

In addition, the new law only allows the compensation price for "garden land attached to residential land" to be equal to the compensation price for agricultural land (about 150,000 VND/m2 - reporter), much lower than the price equivalent to 50% of residential land according to the 2013 Land Law. This causes difficulties for the locality, because people react strongly. They think that the land on National Highway 46 has a market price of 20 million VND/m2, but the current compensation of 150,000 VND is too low," Mr. Hai explained.

The second difficulty that the Nam Dan District Land Acquisition Council is facing is the funding source for relocating the lighting system and trees on both sides of the road. It is estimated that 16.1 billion VND will be needed. Currently, the district is submitting a proposal to the province for support of part of the relocation costs.

"The provincial Party Committee, the provincial People's Committee and the district authorities are all very interested in this project. Since its implementation, we have held 12 meetings to resolve difficulties, and continuously reported in writing, asking for opinions from superiors and competent authorities to complete the compensation and site clearance procedures as soon as possible. Up to now, we have coordinated with the Department of Natural Resources and Environment to complete the measurement work to recover land from 4/5 communes. 50/652 households have signed the minutes, two households have received compensation, and it is expected that the land will be handed over in mid-March.

We commit to handing over 10% of the land to the investor and contractor to meet the construction conditions this March. By the end of April, we will basically hand over the agricultural land. At the same time, we will carry out procedures to relocate the transformer stations of the medium and low voltage power system; request units such as Nghe An water supply, electricity, and telecommunications to relocate underground infrastructure according to the contractor's construction schedule," Mr. Hai affirmed.

Regarding the work of clearing residential and garden land, "we determined that this would be a difficult task. It is estimated that there are more than 200 households with garden land attached to residential land (accounting for nearly 50% of the households involved). The district has reported this content to the province for comments. The province has also directed the district to strengthen propaganda and mobilization work so that people understand, agree, and ensure proper implementation according to the provisions of the new Land Law," Mr. Hai stated.

The project to renovate and expand National Highway 46, Vinh - Nam Dan section, has a total length of more than 10km. The starting point is at Km 21+642.44 (near M1 pier of Muou bridge, in Nam Giang commune, Nam Dan district), the ending point is at Km 32+334.53 (near M2 pier of Thien Duong bridge, in Nam Dan town, Nam Dan district, Nghe An province).

The project is invested in the scale of a level III plain road including 4 lanes, roadbed width of 21.5m, design speed of 80km/h.

The project has a total estimated investment of 500 billion VND, using the medium-term capital of the Central Government. Of which, the cost of compensation for site clearance is more than 166 billion VND; construction and equipment costs are more than 258 billion VND; project management costs are nearly 3.8 billion VND; construction investment consulting costs are more than 17 billion VND; other costs are more than 7.4 billion VND and contingency costs are nearly 47 billion VND.

According to the roadmap, the project was assigned by the Ministry of Transport to Project Management Board 85 as the investor representative. The winning contractor is Hoa Hiep Company Limited and will be implemented in 2025.

Source: https://www.baogiaothong.vn/du-an-mo-rong-ql46-o-nghe-an-vi-sao-chua-the-khoi-cong-khi-da-hoan-tat-thu-tuc-192250301151114131.htm