Yen Khanh - A bright spot on the country's advanced new rural map

Yen Khanh is the first district of Ninh Binh province and one of the first 6 districts in the country to be recognized as a district meeting advanced new rural standards.

Yen Khanh - A bright spot on the country's advanced new rural map

In recent years, agricultural production in Yen Khanh district has developed strongly.

When starting to build an advanced new-style rural district, Yen Khanh also encountered many difficulties, such as: the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic; African swine fever along with the global economic recession has directly affected production, business and people's lives. The form of production organization has changed a lot but is not sustainable; investment resources are still limited. Yen Khanh district's revenue still faces many difficulties and is not sustainable; there are not many enterprises operating in the production sector, over 70% of non-state revenue arises from the field of basic construction investment, land use fees account for a large proportion of the total budget revenue in the area. Some mechanisms and policies on land, land accumulation; support for enterprises investing in agriculture and rural areas... have not been effective, causing difficulties for the organization of local agricultural production.

Faced with the above difficulties, closely following the direction of the Central Government and the province, the District Party Committee, People's Council and People's Committee have focused on leading, directing and promptly issuing documents as a basis for implementation, ensuring compliance with reality. In which, the consistent guiding viewpoint is: New rural construction only has a starting point but no ending point; strongly mobilizing resources among the people, promoting the role of the community as the main subject, with the spirit of "people know, people discuss, people do, people inspect, people enjoy".

Accordingly, the district focuses on directing localities to consolidate, maintain and improve the NTM criteria. In particular, it focuses on improving the quality of criteria groups on production development, income improvement, health, culture, education and environment, quality of living environment, etc. Maximizing resources, comparative advantages, and the role of the people in the process of deployment and implementation, focusing on building NTM from the district to the grassroots level.

During the direction, the district has attached importance to and done well the propaganda work, raising awareness of new rural construction in many forms such as: Visual propaganda; thematic propaganda, integrated in conferences, monthly meetings of Party organizations, associations, unions; training programs; organizing "Skilled mass mobilization" competitions in new rural construction, Mass art performance festival "mass movement to participate in maintaining security and order, contributing to building a civilized new rural area"...

Propaganda activities have contributed to raising awareness, creating consensus among cadres, party members and people, giving them a more correct understanding of their role as subjects in the construction of new rural areas, advanced new rural areas, and models, thereby proactively and actively participating.

In particular, in order to create motivation to complete the criteria for building an advanced new-style rural district, based on the province's support mechanisms and policies and based on the local implementation, from 2011 to 2023, Yen Khanh district has issued key mechanisms and policies to support the implementation of the National Target Program on new-style rural construction in the area such as: 100% support for the cost of implementing the general planning for communes; support funding for traditional cultural clubs to maintain and develop art forms in villages, hamlets and streets in the district, and to beautify the landscape of historical relic sites (50 million VND/relic site); support for the construction and development of OCOP products (20 million VND/product); support for waste classification and self-treatment of waste at households in villages, hamlets and streets (15 million VND/village, hamlet and street); support for buying garbage collection vehicles in communes and towns, collecting pesticide bags... (5 million VND/village, hamlet, street); support for communes to meet advanced new rural standards 300 million VND/commune; support for communes to meet model new rural standards 500 million VND/commune; support for villages (hamlets) to meet model new rural standards 100 million VND/village (hamlet); support for model gardens in communes and towns 5 million VND/garden; support for mechanization, development of commodity production, application of high technology, organic production,... The timely promulgation of mechanisms and policies has created important motivation for localities to speed up the progress of completing the criteria for building advanced new rural areas.

To successfully implement the goals and tasks of building an advanced new-style rural district, Yen Khanh district has mobilized the entire political system from the district to the grassroots to focus on leadership, direction, and drastic participation, mobilize maximum resources, and integrate programs and projects of the Central, province, district, and commune to comprehensively invest in infrastructure in all fields.

In the period of 2019-2023, the whole district mobilized over 5 trillion VND to implement the criteria for building advanced new rural areas, of which the State budget was over 1.9 trillion VND; mobilized people and the community to contribute over 930 billion VND and other legal capital sources... Up to now, the social infrastructure system has been planned, upgraded, and newly built synchronously and modernly, ensuring regional and inter-regional connectivity.

The district has the North-South expressway running through it, the Ninh Binh-Hai Phong expressway is being invested in; the provincial and district road systems have been newly invested and expanded; inter-village and inter-commune roads have been upgraded to 100% asphalt and concrete to meet the prescribed standards; 250 km of lighting lines have been installed, 203 km of flower and tree paths have been planted on the main roads and in residential areas to create a bright-green-clean-beautiful landscape. Debts on basic construction have been focused on being resolved completely; up to now, the district has no debt on basic construction for projects invested by the district using district-level budget capital.

Implementing the motto of the State supporting cement, people contributing labor and materials, the movement to upgrade rural roads has been unanimously implemented by the people of the communes. Up to now, 100% of communes have asphalted and concreted roads to the commune center that meet the prescribed standards; 100% of villages and hamlets have concrete alleys and lanes; the main intra-field roads have been basically hardened to ensure convenient motor vehicle travel, meeting production and people's living requirements; installing 250 km of electric lighting lines, planting over 203 km of flower paths and trees along the roads and in residential areas...

To gradually shorten the gap between rural and urban areas, Yen Khanh has focused on developing production and increasing farmers' income. Accordingly, agricultural production is focused on directing towards commodity production, organic agriculture, high-tech agriculture, circular agriculture, creating a value chain linking from production to product consumption, achieving many positive results, making Yen Khanh the leading district in agricultural restructuring: There are over 277 effective agricultural production models (an increase of 190 models compared to 2018), of which 16 models generate an income of more than 500 million VND/year. Mechanization in agricultural production is increasingly widely applied, up to now the district has 100% of the land area prepared by machines, 100% of the rice area is harvested by combine harvesters; there are 25 OCOP products rated 3 stars or higher.

Along with agricultural production, Yen Khanh district focuses on developing industrial production, small-scale industry, and services, contributing to creating a positive shift in rural occupations, creating jobs, and increasing income for people. The district creates conditions for businesses, organizations, and individuals to invest in expanding production and business, developing environmentally friendly industries and fields, associated with improving labor productivity, quality, and efficiency. In the district, there are 2 industrial parks and 2 industrial clusters, 7 craft villages recognized by the Provincial People's Committee, maintaining regular jobs for more than 20,000 workers in the district. In 2023, industrial and small-scale industry revenue will reach more than 18.8 trillion VND/year. Retail sales of goods and services will reach over 9 trillion VND/year; total development investment capital in the district will be over 3.5 trillion VND.

The movement to build advanced new rural areas and model new rural areas in localities in the district has taken place vigorously, contributing to bringing new vitality and changing the face of the rural areas of the district. The role of farmers has clearly changed, people are excited, confident and actively join hands to participate in implementing the goals of building the district to meet advanced new rural standards. The whole district has 12 communes meeting advanced new rural standards, including 2 model new rural communes; 186/268 villages and hamlets meeting model new rural standards, the district has completed 9/9 criteria for building advanced new rural districts, which have been examined and confirmed by the provincial departments and branches according to regulations, 99.75% of people are satisfied with the results of building advanced new rural areas in the area.

With its continuous efforts, Yen Khanh has been gradually affirming its position on the national new rural map. On June 21, 2024, the Prime Minister issued Decision No. 551/QD-TTg recognizing Yen Khanh district (Ninh Binh province) as meeting advanced new rural standards in 2023. This is the crystallization of the consensus between "Party's will, people's heart", joining hands and hearts to build the homeland to become more and more prosperous and developed.

Article and photos: Mai Lan