VietNamNet Bridge – The rural poverty rate is falling very fast. Indeed, farmers are mandatorily out of poverty, but their lives do not get better in fact.

The house of Mr. Ha Tien So, 75 and Mrs. Truong Thi Vuon, 68 in Village 1 in An Ninh Commune, Binh Luc District of the northern province of Ha Nam looks horrible. The house was built by state capital several years ago, under the program to demolish unsafe houses. The old couple cannot afford to build such a house.

So was sick and he had to stay in bed but he did not have money to buy drugs. He took a few sweet potatoes covered by a woolen hat for his lunch. These are sweet potatoes of his neighbor and the old couple preferred them than rice. His wife, Mrs. Vuon was also very ill but she did not know what diseases she caught because she had never been to a hospital.

Mr. So said they have 3.9 sao (1,404 sq.m) of fields but they are too old and too weak to do the farm work. They do not have enough capital to raise poultry or cattle. The old couple could not earn enough to feed themselves but they are not listed as the poor. It is strange but in this area, it is very common.

Indeed, at the time the village chief - Mr. Truong Dinh Dien - made the list of poor households this year, he was also mindful of the old couple. He also expected that the old couple is recognized as the poor to be granted with a healthcare insurance card and Tet gift or several tens of kilos of rice each year.

However, they have a daughter named Ha Thi Ha, who is a single mum. Ha cannot afford to move out of her parents’ home so she built a tent next to her parents’ house. Her parents shared with her a small piece of field.

The village head said it is very “tense” in picking poor households in the village. The commune government permitted each village to “select” 10 percent of households as the poor. The village has 1, 202 households and 630 people. Last year the village had over 30 poor households but this year the commune authorities instructed the village to drastically reduce the number of poor households, to only 23. That is the policy but the local people still vote to 28 households as poor. The village had to re-hold the vote and based on the ballot to pick up 23 poor households from the top to the bottom.

Everyone wants to be recognized as the poor. Some want to be the poor to send their kids to school. Some want to be the poor to get health insurance cards. Poor households are also subsidized with VND30,000 ($1.5) of power charges/month. Therefore, the poor certificate is very important. But the village can only select 23 households.

In that situation, Mr. So and Mrs. Vuon had to give the poor certificate to their daughter so their grandson named Ha Tien Hung can go to school, even though sometimes they were out of rice.

Like Village 1, Village 9 has to “escape poverty” under the set target. This year, the village is allowed to have 19 out of 174 households to be poor.

Mrs. Tran Thi Lay’s house was built on a cement floor, which used to be the floor of a pigsty. Lay has four children. Two of them got married. A son now works in the south and a daughter is studying at a college in Phu Tho Province. Lay takes care of 720sq.m of field alone. However, she was old and weak so she had to hire workers to plant rice on the field and pay them by rice.

Her husband died four years ago, at the time the family was about to build a new house. That plan has gone away with the man. The foundation is still there but she cannot afford to build it into a house. She has to live in a tent which is built on the floor of the pigsty. It is strange that Lay is not considered as the poor.

In Village 9, there are many poor households who are not recognized as poor like Mrs. Lay. The strangest case is Mrs. Le Thi Nhung, 74. She is the wife of a war martyr. She raised three daughters alone, including one with poor health and one with congenital heart disease, who mainly lie in bed or in the hospital. Mrs. Nhung is old so her first daughter named Tran Thi Men has to take care of the family’s 1,650 sq.m field.

Nhung said: "I do not need to be recognized as the poor to get some rice or to borrow capital. I only need to be considered as the poor to get a health care insurance card for my daughter. The time she spends in the hospital is more than at home. I cannot afford her hospital fees."

The village head said he tried his best but the commune government only allowed to increase the rate of poverty to 11 percent of the total households. The criteria for poverty are also very strange recently, in which income is not the decisive factor. Poor households are mainly the elders who cannot work anymore.

"Our village has several tens of households of that type. We have to exclude gradually to reach the target. Mrs. Nhung and Mrs. Lay are really poor because they do not have any source of income but they are not considered as poor because the poverty certificates have to be granted to others. Village 9 has about 30 households who cannot earn VND300,000 ($15) per month, let alone enough to escape poverty targets," the village chief said.

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