New rural construction: Adapting to the new context

(Quang Ngai Newspaper) - The National Target Program on New Rural Development (NRD) is defined as a journey of continuous innovation, creativity and development. If in the previous period, NRD focused on infrastructure, then in 2025 and the following years, NRD construction will aim for a rich and beautiful countryside and knowledgeable farmers.

Identify bottlenecks

According to the assessment of the Department of Agriculture and Environment (DARD), the New Rural Development Program for the 2021-2025 period has created fundamental changes in the appearance of rural areas and people's lives, but has not yet met the set targets and plans. To date, the whole province has 93/144 communes meeting the New Rural Development standards (64.6%), 10 communes meeting the advanced New Rural Development standards and 95 villages recognized as model rural residential areas. In addition, the results of implementing the New Rural Development standards still have large gaps and differences between regions in the province, especially in mountainous areas. Currently, Son Tay district has no commune meeting the New Rural Development standards, while communes in the province are struggling to implement and maintain the criteria. For example, Son Ky commune (Son Ha), although it has made efforts to implement 19 criteria and strive to meet the NTM standards by 2024, because there were 2 cases of children under 16 years old being sexually abused and pregnant in the commune, it did not meet criterion 19.2 on security and order.

The completion of the Lien River embankment to prevent landslides through Ba Thanh commune (Ba To) will protect people's lives and property and state infrastructure, contributing to flexible adaptation to climate change and natural disaster prevention.

Implementing the plan to build a new rural area in 2025 (Decision No. 807/QD-UBND dated December 27, 2024 on approving the plan to build a new rural area in 2025), at the district level, Duc Pho town has completed the task of building a new rural area, 6 communes have met the new rural standards, 14 communes have met the advanced new rural standards, 2 communes have met the model new rural standards and 23 villages in communes of 5 mountainous districts have met the new rural village standards. The total capital plan for 2025 is over 650 billion VND, of which the development investment capital is over 579 billion VND, and the public capital is over 71 billion VND. However, in the current context, the communes that have met the new rural area and advanced new rural area standards according to the plan for 2025 face many difficulties, especially in implementing the procedures, records and appraisal and recognition.

Director of the Department of Agriculture and Environment Ho Trong Phuong said that in the near future, the number of communes is expected to decrease, therefore, after receiving guidance documents from higher levels, the Department will preside over and coordinate with relevant departments, branches and localities to review and register targets and indicators for the implementation of the New Rural Construction Program for the period 2026 - 2030. In the immediate future, local authorities will urgently allocate and disburse capital sources to ensure the implementation of the program's targets and objectives in 2025. Particularly, localities registering to achieve the New Rural Construction, Advanced New Rural Construction, and Model New Rural Construction targets in 2024 and 2025 will urgently review and evaluate the results in conjunction with solutions to effectively implement the criteria and indicators according to regulations.

Proactive and effective adaptation

The New Rural Development Program for the 2026-2030 period aims at comprehensive and sustainable goals, associated with industrialization, urbanization, digital transformation, and green growth; ensuring substance, efficiency, and depth, for the benefit of the people. Therefore, local authorities believe that the implementation of the New Rural Development Program in 2025 as well as the 2026-2030 period needs to be implemented synchronously and comprehensively, ensuring consistency in management and effective adaptation to the new context.

Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Binh Son District Ung Dinh Hien said that the commune will soon be larger in scale, so the implementation of the New Rural Development Program also needs to be reviewed and carefully calculated, including reviewing the criteria assessment requirements in a flexible and practical manner. For example, the rate of households using clean water according to standards from the centralized water supply system is one of the conditions for communes to be assessed as meeting the New Rural Development standards. However, at present, partly because the socialization of clean water supply is strongly implemented by units, partly because people have access to clean water from different sources, not just from the centralized water supply system.

The rate of people using clean water that meets standards from centralized water supply works is one of the conditions for assessing a commune to meet NTM standards. In the photo: People in Ha Boi village, Long Hiep commune (Minh Long) use water from a centralized water supply work.

Meanwhile, challenges from climate change require localities to develop and implement flexible adaptation solutions, increasing resilience for rural areas, especially mountainous, coastal and island areas. Therefore, local authorities also believe that the criteria for recognizing new rural communes, advanced new rural communes and model new rural communes need to closely follow this issue, creating a solid foundation for sustainable development of rural and mountainous areas.

Chairman of Minh Long District People's Committee Dinh Van Diet said that the new rural construction program in the new context must be suitable to the conditions of each locality, aiming to balance between regions, especially mountainous areas and ethnic minority areas. Thereby ensuring the development of synchronous and modern socio-economic infrastructure, connecting with urban areas, contributing to promoting the rural economy in an environmentally friendly direction, preserving cultural identity, ensuring social security, improving labor productivity, and improving people's income. In addition, it is necessary to calculate and integrate the contents of the National Target Program on Sustainable Poverty Reduction with the new rural areas to increase efficiency, avoid overlap and effectively implement resources in the new context.

Director of the Department of Agriculture and Environment Ho Trong Phuong said that the core goal of the New Rural Development Program in 2025 and the next phase is to create jobs and increase local income for rural residents, approaching the income in urban areas. Therefore, in addition to developing agriculture and industry, ensuring jobs and increasing income for people, localities should step up propaganda and strengthen solidarity to implement targets and tasks in the new context. For localities registering to meet the New Rural and Advanced New Rural standards in 2025, they will face difficulties in implementing the procedures and records for reviewing and recognizing communes that meet the standards. Therefore, after receiving guidance documents from superiors, the Department of Agriculture and Environment will coordinate with departments, branches, units and localities to organize the implementation of reviews and synthesize reports in accordance with the actual situation of the province.

Article and photos: MY HOA

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Source: https://baoquangngai.vn/kinh-te/202503/xay-dung-nong-thon-moithich-ung-voi-boi-canh-moi-3f34189/