New life in rural areas in Khanh Hoa

Carrying out the National Target Program on building new rural areas for 4 years from 2011 to 2014, Khanh Hoa Province has achieved praiseworthy results. New life has been seen in communes qualified for standards of new rural areas...

Going on concrete paths in Dien Lac Commune, Dien Khanh District one recent day, we felt the change of this rural area. Nguyen Duy Hieu, a local farmer, happily said with us, “This road used to be a small pathway which was very difficult to travel. Now, it has been rebuilt. Along with traffic roads, schools, medical stations, markets, etc. have been rebuilt or repaired. The commune really has become a new rural area.”

Conrete paths make travel in rural areas easier now.

Moreover, awareness of the local people in the commune has been improved obviously, especially in production. They looked delighted when sharing with us about their rice fields, vegetable fields and flower fields which gave high production thanks to being applied new seeds as well as machines instead of being hand-made before. Reportedly, in the winter-spring crop of 2013 – 2014, the model field farmers in Dien Lac Commune gave an average productivity of 73.4 quintals/hectare. At present, average income of the local people is estimated to be VND23.14 million/person/year, VND2.14 higher than the figure of VND21/person/year defined for a commune of new rural area by the Central.

Coming to another commune named Vinh Ngoc in Nha Trang City, we saw spiritual life of the rural people improved. In the Public Study Center, which has just been built with more than VND600 million, funded by an enterprise in the commune, both young and old people did exercises, attend martial arts class, aerobic, singing and dancing practice, etc. The communal activities made the atmosphere here ebullient. In 2014, Vinh Ngoc Commune was granted certificate of merit by the Prime Minister for the effort in building new rural area.

Under the program of building new rural areas, from 2011 to 2014, the province developed many projects focusing on production, partly changing farming habits such as model fields producing seed rice, supporting seeds and breeders, etc. Some production groups were set up and earned high economic effects such as the group of growing ornamental plants and flowers in Vinh Ngoc Commune (Nha Trang City), the group of raising lizards in Dien Phu Commune (Dien Khanh District), the group of raising quails in Dien Lac Commune (Dien Khanh District), the group of raising lobsters in Cam Binh Commune (Cam Ranh City), and the group of growing and selling mangoes in Cam Thanh Nam Commune (Cam Ranh City). The groups made production better, partly raising income of the local people and decreasing the number of poor households. From 2011 to 2014, the total investment in building new rural areas in 10 communes was over VND976 billion.

Satisfying new rural area standards, the ten communes continue making efforts to preserve and raise norms. In 2015, more 12 communes in the province have registered to be qualified for new rural areas. Over VND165 billion is expected to be invested in the communes. The 12 communes are expected to fulfill the target in end 2015, putting the number of new rural communes in the whole province to 22, out of 94 communes across the province.

“The new rural area building program has gradually brought better appearance for rural areas in the province, with achievements such as impulsing economy, upgrading spiritual and material life of rural people, modernizing infrastructures, developing economic structure and production forms reasonably, making rural society democratic, civilized and characteristic, protecting environment, intensifying the political system and keeping the social security. The achievements will encourage other communes to carry out the program in the coming time”, said Vice-chairman of Khanh Hoa Provincial People’s Committee Le Duc Vinh.

T.T