VietNamNet Bridge – More than 300 households on Nhim Island were told to leave the island to protect the water resource of the Dau Tieng reservoir. They did not know that they had to leave to give place for a film studio.

Film studio and resort project believed to kill Dau Tieng reservoir


In 2002, the Tay Ninh provincial people’s committee released a decision that the local residents of the four hamlets of the Dau Tieng reservoir area in Duong Minh Chau district (including Nhim Island) had to leave under a plan to protect the ecological environment and preserve the waster resource.

Building film studio to protect the water resource?

At that time, the decision was supported by relevant branches and agencies, which believed that this was a necessary move to create favorable conditions for the operation of the Dau Tieng reservoir. In return for their leave, local residents got 5 million dong per hectare for every hectare of land.

It cost 32.6 billion dong to complete the site clearance in total, including 11.6 billion dong paid to 319 households as compensation. Bui Xuan Dien, who lived on the Nhim Island before, said that though he regretted the great efforts spent to make waste land into cultivated land, and though he did not want to leave the fertile land, he still had to leave, because this was a decision of the local authorities.

Therefore, Dien has got furious when hearing that the Tay Ninh provincial authorities have decided to develop film studio on the place from which he had to leave.

“I have heard that the Nhim Island would turn into an eco-tourism site. Is this the way the provincial authorities follow to “protect the water resource”?” he questioned.

Nguyen Hoang Nam, Deputy Chief Secretariat of the Tay Ninh people’s committee, said that every household was given 0.1 hectare of land in the resettlement area, which is enough for them to build a house for accommodation and have land for agricultural production.

Nam stressed that local residents do not lack land for production, and that they just return to Nhim Island to cultivate simply because the land still has been left idle.

“The provincial authorities have urged involved parties to speed up the implementation of the project in order to prevent people from returning and reoccupying the project’s land,” he said.

Government inspectors’ requests ignored?

Nguoi lao dong newspaper has found out that the resettlement land area for Nhim island’s local residents in Tan Thanh commune of Tan Chau district has the total area of 50.5 hectares, which includes 396 land plots with the area of 0.1 hectare for each, and 76 0.04 hectare land plots,

In 2007, the government inspectors, who worked on the resettlement project, found out that most of the land area of local residents on the Nhim Island was the land for agricultural production, while the land allocated to them in the resettlement areas is building land, with which people cannot organize production. Since the resettlement area is far from the center, while the infrastructure conditions remain poor, people cannot work to earn their living and face a lot of difficulties. A lot of households were found as having no money to spend on electricity and water.

The government inspectors then asked the provincial authorities to provide production land to local residents. However, to date, the request has not been fulfilled. As a result, people have to return to the Nhim Island to seek jobs.

Vo Van Dap, a farmer in Duong Minh Chau town said that his family left Nhim Island with 20 million dong in hands. Since the production land area is limited, just 0.1 hectare, they are leading very hard lives.

Source: NLD