VietNamNet Bridge – Did Truong Chinh Road veer off its original plan to avoid intruding on the properties of some officials?

The current Truong Chinh Road (straight) and the road after expansion (curved).

Some Hanoi newspapers are making just that claim, reporting that the road’s implementation was indeed at variance with the original design - bending where it was intended to be straight - and that this was done with the purpose of avoiding the houses of certain government officials.

Not true, asserts a senior Hanoi official. The expanded Truong Chinh Road project was implemented by law, with the consent of the relevant authorities.

Nevertheless, the Government Chief Inspector, Mr. Huynh Phong Tranh, has just asked Hanoi to clear up the controversy surrounding the allegations.

Speaking to the press on April 3, Mr. Nguyen Van Thinh, Vice Chief of the Hanoi People's Committee Office offered assurances: "There is no difference between the houses of officials and those of ordinary people. The city only chose the most economical plan”.

Thinh said the Hanoi authorities have not received any official reports that the road was built any differently from the original design.

"Any agency that did not follow the design must take responsibility for the wrongdoing. The responsibility for inspection and monitoring of this project belongs to the local government and related agencies, including the Department of Planning and Architecture of Hanoi," he added.

Previously, it was reported in newspapers that the nearly 2km Truong Chinh expansion was straight in the original design whereas, in fact, the road now bends. Some local residents who say have they lost their houses to the VND2.560 billion project were enraged by these reports. Officials, however, explained that the bends in the road are due to technical factors.

The project is expected to be completed and opened to traffic in 2015.

Hanoi has spent VND182 billion to compensate the 25/32 organizations and 90/637 households. The remaining have not accepted the compensation yet. Dozens of houses facing the road are being dismantled, with new homes being built, set back about ten meters.

As the road was bent, hundreds of households in Khuong Thuong Ward, Dong Da District, were angry. Only a few households agreed to take the compensation and moved away. The remaining households keep opening their home-shops and do not accept the planning.

Many local people, whose houses were acquired for the project, say that in both the Hanoi construction planning to 2030, approved by the Prime Minister in June 1998, and the design planning of the Ministry of Defense, Truong Chinh road is straight. But in 2008, the Hanoi People's Committee approved a plan with a bent road.

Mr. Nguyen Sy Bao, Director of the Board of Management of Hanoi Urban Development Projects, the investor, insists that his agency built the road based on its design and did not bend it arbitrarily.

Whether the road is curved or straight, it’s the job of the Department of Planning and Architecture, he says.

The Hanoi Planning and Architecture Department says that the road bends due to technical factors, and that the design was also approved by the Ministry of Defense to take some land of the Air Defense and Air Force.

VNE