A corner of Bich Dong township today.

Unanimously determined to build the homeland

In 2011, Viet Yen district started new-style rural building. At that time, the popularization was only in the early stage so the awareness of a part of people remained limited. They still relied on superiors. The authorities were embarrassed in management. 

After drawing experience, the district determined that the dissemination of guidelines, policies and ways of building new-style rural areas must top the agenda. The movement is only successful with people’s support. Therefore, the whole political system has come into play. 

The Fatherland Front Committee and socio-political organizations have mobilized members and people to actively participate in movements and campaigns such as "Viet Yen joins hands to build new-style rural areas", “All people unite to build new-style rural and civilized urban areas"... Through these movements, people in the district have donated more than 350,000 sq.m of agricultural and residential land, 4,700 working days and hundreds of billions of VND to new rural construction.

Creating resources to realize difficult criteria

In 2011, on average, each commune in Viet Yen met only nine new rural area criteria. Most unfinished criteria were those on infrastructure and environment which need large resources. In order to reach the target, the district People's Committee put forth a breakthrough solution in the infrastructure construction. 

In particular, it issued a mechanism to extract all of the surplus revenue from auctioning land use rights for communes to build new-style rural areas and allocate additional district budget to encourage communes to invest in this field. It also issued a cement support mechanism to develop rural transport.

In addition, the district stepped up the mobilizing of resources from people and enterprises to implement the programme. Total capital mobilized in the 2011 - 2018 period reached nearly 3 trillion VND (of which more than 545 billion VND came from social resources and people). 

With this sum, the district has invested in building 940 works and production models, more than 360 km of roads and 12 km of canals. Hundreds of classrooms, function rooms, village cultural houses and health stations have been constructed without debts.

Transferring cucumber nursing technique in net house in Village 4, Viet Tien commune.

To implement the environmental criteria, the district has directed communes and townships to set up an environmental sanitation group and a waste collection point in each village (except for Nguyet Duc village because people here live and work on waterways). The district provided all collection facilities and trash bins for villages and communes. So Viet Yen now has no serious environmental pollution areas.

Steady progress

As a key industrial district of the province, Viet Yen has attracted hundreds of investment projects inside and outside industrial zones, creating jobs and incomes for thousands of local workers. The district defines improving incomes and living standards of rural people as a core task. 

After land planning and merging as well as labor and agricultural production restructuring, the district now has 10 ha of plastic and net houses applying high technology. It has formed a number of large-scale production areas with many chains for selling products. This success contributes to raising the district’s average rural income this year to 36 million VND per person per year. The rate of poor households is expected to drop to about 4.21 percent.

Le O Pich, Secretary of the district Party Committee and Chairman of the district People's Committee said, “Up to now, all 17 communes have met new rural standards and the district has completed all nine criteria for a new-style rural district. We will continue to direct the communes to keep or improve the new rural criteria to reach the target of becoming model new rural areas. Viet Yen strives to be recognized as a new-style rural district by the end of this year". 

The Dai