Workers on the job after land clearance in a section of the project running through Ninh Binh Province. — Photo baogiaothong.vn

Ninh Binh, Nam Dinh, Thanh Hoa, Nghe An, Ha Tinh, Quang Tri, Thua Thien-Hue, Khanh Hoa, Ninh Thuan, Binh Thuan, Dong Nai, Tien Giang and Vinh Long provinces have all made the efforts.

Dong Nai was the first province to basically finish land clearance work and ready to hand over the land for the project, while Nghe An was the slowest and has completed only 77 per cent of the work so far.

Land clearance progress in the other localities has exceeded 80 per cent on average. 

For example, land clearance progress has hit 83 per cent in Ninh Binh Province.

Vu Van Luan, chairman of the People’s Committee of Khanh Hoa Commune in the province, said about 700 households were affected by land transfers in the commune.

The committee was negotiating with the last 40 households for compensation, he said.

The committee would finish land clearance for the project by June 30, Luan said.

In Thanh Hoa Province – where nearly 105km of the expressway runs through, it is estimated some 9,168 households were affected due to the project.

Land clearance progress has reached 92.2 per cent, Giao Thông (Transport) online newspaper reported.

Nguyen Duc Trung, deputy head of the provincial Transport Department, said the department had ordered district authorities to speed up to ensure all land for the project is handed over before June 30.

Nguyen Duc An, deputy director of the Nghe An Province Transport Department, said the major reason for the locality's delay was slow construction of resettlement areas.

To hand over the land fund before the deadline, the province planned to offer affected households money to rent houses to temporarily live in until the resettlement areas were finished, An said.

Deputy Minister Nguyen Nhat said the land clearance for the project was being implemented urgently and seriously.

Nhat said the sooner the localities complete land clearance, the sooner they would be able to disburse the public investment capital they were allocated from the State budget.

However, Nhat also ordered the localities to quickly finish their construction of resettlement areas and relocation of technical infrastructure works, including telecommunication cables and power lines, within the project scale.

Previously, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc sent a message last month to direct localities to solve problems in the project’s land clearance.

Phuc ordered the Party Secretary and head of the People’s Committee of each locality to consider land clearance work for the project an important and urgent task.

He also asked localities to quickly implement the completion of 114 resettlement areas in the second quarter of this year to relocate affected households.

There are 11 sub-projects under the North-South Expressway Project, with a total length of 654km.

The total investment of the sub-projects is about VND118.7 trillion (US$5 billion). The fund for land clearance is about VND12.4 trillion ($529,000).  VNS

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