PM sets Q2 deadline for North-South Expressway land clearance

Land clearance is at 70 percent and if local authorities are not determined, the goal to complete this process by the end of this quarter will be missed, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said Thursday.

Construction of all 114 resettlement areas for the projects should begin this quarter and municipal leaders must consider land clearance an urgent task, the PM said.

A Transport Ministry report shows most localities have not given their final approval on the relocation plan for affected households. The northern provinces of Nam Dinh and Ninh Binh, Khanh Hoa Province in the central region, and the southern provinces of Ninh Thuan and Dong Nai are among localities that have not begun work on resettlement areas.

So far, work has begun on just 35 out of 114 resettlement areas.

Total land clearance costs for the North-South Expressway are estimated at VND12.4 trillion ($526.3 million). It is also estimated that 3,690 households have to be relocated as the government takes away 4,835 hectares of land.

The government had said last month it would propose to the Politburo, the main decision-making body of the Communist Party of Vietnam, and to the National Assembly, that the state budget be used to build the eight sections.

These sections were earlier planned under the private-public-partnership (PPP) model, but the transport ministry proposed that state budget be used after prospective investors said they faced difficulties in acquiring funding from banks.

The eight sections are part of the 11 that will comprise the North-South Expressway. Work on the three state-funded sections is already underway.