Program 135, period 2016-2020: Contributing to improving the lives of ethnic minorities

– Infrastructure in remote and extremely difficult communes has had many positive changes, the people’s material and spiritual life has continued to be improved, social security has been paid more attention … those are outstanding results after 5 years of implementing Program 135, period 2016 – 2020 in the province.

Lang Son is a mountainous province with 200 communes, wards and townships (of which 31 communes in region I, 57 communes in region II and 112 communes in region III are subject to the investment of Program 135). The whole province has nearly 159,000 ethnic minority households and there are 20,137 ethnic minority households classified as poor households. Ethnic minorities account for over 84% of the province’s population. Over the past years, with the attention of the Party and State through programs and projects to support people in economic development, construction of rural infrastructure works, the people’s life and the face of rural areas in the highlands in the province have had positive changes.

In mid-April 2021, we were present in Tham Na village, Huu Kien commune, Chi Lang district feeling the most remarkable change. The previous dirt road to the village center was concreted, the road surface is 3 meters wide and 1,000 meters long thanks to the capital of Program 135, with a total investment of nearly two billion VND. The road has just been used for four seasons, creating favorable conditions for villagers to trade goods, carry out labor and production and so on.

Mr. Ma Van Hien, Head of Tham Na village, Huu Kien commune, said that in 2018, the road was completed and put into use, making it convenient for children in the village to travel to schools, for people to go to the field or go shopping; all agricultural products produced are bought by traders right at the village and are not under price pressure as before. They are very excited because there is a new way to make life more stable.

The road to the center of Ban Hoay village, Hong Thai commune, Binh Gia district is concreted thanks to the fund under Program 135, facilitating people to travel and trade goods

Not only investing in projects in Tham Na village, in the 2016-2020 period, the whole province had hundreds of infrastructure projects invested to serve the socio-economic development needs of ethnic minorities. Accordingly, in the 2016-2020 period, the whole province integrated and mobilized over 851 billion VND (of which, the central budget was over 835 billion VND, the local budget was over 10 billion VND and the socialization was over five billion VND) to invest in infrastructure development projects, community and grassroots staff capacity building projects under Program 135.

For projects supporting infrastructure development investment in the past five years, the province has implemented 1,698 works (of which, 1,149 rural roads have been constructed, accounting for 67%). The rest of the works focus on irrigation canals, classrooms, auxiliary works, commune health centers, electricity for daily life and cultural houses. These works not only contribute to changing the face of upland areas but also positively help ethnic minorities develop production, reduce poverty and so forth.

For the project of capacity building for the community and grassroots cadres in the 2016-2020 period, the central government has allocated over 24.8 billion VND to the province. Thereby, levels, committees, agencies and unions in the province have organized 1,074 training courses for over 69,000 turns of people. Through the project, the staff of communes benefiting from the program has been equipped with knowledge and capacity to operate at the grassroots level, firmly grasping the investment process of implementing infrastructure projects… contributing to the good implementation of local economic development tasks. The training courses also disseminate production experience, science and technology, contribute to improving farming techniques, helping people shift suitable crop varieties and animals with high economic value, contributing to reducing the rate of poor households in the province over the years, in 2016 the rate of poor households was 25.95%, by the end of 2020, the rate of poor households in the province was 7.89%.

Mr. Lam Van Vien, Deputy Head of the Provincial Ethnic Affairs Committee, said that Program 135 in the 2016-2020 period has been paid attention and directed by party committees, authorities, creating a high consensus among the people, especially ethnic minority areas in extremely difficult communes. The program has contributed to bringing a new face to the difficult communes of the province. The invested infrastructure projects are brought into play. In the agricultural economic restructuring, concentrated commodity production areas have been gradually formed, many households have developed their economies according to the model of farming and agricultural services. Along with that, grassroots cadres have been trained, fostered and improved in basic capacity to meet the requirements of tasks and so on.

From the results achieved in recent years, it can be affirmed that Program 135 is a popular program with the support of the people. Each investment and support content has a direct impact on socio-economic promotion, poverty reduction in Lang Son province’s ethnic minority and mountainous areas.