Dau Tieng district: Many efforts for road maintenance

According to reports, Dau Tieng district is a large area with a road network of 228.6km, road surface of 1,520,398m2. Annually, the authorities must maintain about 50,000 - 60,000m2 (about 4-5%). Meanwhile, overloaded vehicles transporting sand from Dau Tieng Reservoir have significantly contributed to severely degrading many roads in the district.

Investments for many roads

In the 2012-2015 period, Dau Tieng district invested in 5 bridges, 21 roads with a total length of 33.7km, 235,998m2 of road surface; received Dau Tieng Rubber Company’s management transfer of 5 roads with a total length of 18.2km, 109,200m2 of road surface. Currently, the total road number managed by the district is 73 routes with a total length 228.6km, 1,520,398m2 road surface; 21 bridges including steel and reinforced concrete bridges… In fact, among 73 routes, only 25 inner roads are asphalt concreted with a total length of 45.2km, 16 bridges with a total length of 376.4m; the remaining are 22 district roads, 5 rural routes transferred by Dau Tieng Rubber Company, and 21 new routes developed from 2012 in the form of asphalted.

Provincial People’s Council Economic - Budget Committee’s delegation surveyed a deteriorated stretch of DT749A road crossing Dau Tieng district

According the latest survey of provincial People’s Council Economic - Budget Committee, Nguyen Tam Duong, Deputy Chief of the Economic - Budget Committee, said compared with asphalt concreted roads, asphalted roads had low loading capacity due to low investment cost. Large vehicles will peel the asphalt layer away, rapidly deteriorate the road surface, and cause difficulties in maintenance…

According to Dau Tieng district’s reports, during 3 years (2013-2015), the district maintained, repaired, invested in 46 projects with a total fund of VND38.816 billion; including VND2.871 billion of regular maintenance, and VND18.479 billion of repair, VND17.466 billion of new investment. Meanwhile, the total length of roads managed by the district is 228.6km, 1,520,398m2 road surface, annual maintenance about 50,000 - 60,000m2 (about 4-5%), it is very low based on allocation. The actual necessary fund for maintenance and repair is VND43.3 billion, including VND24.3 billion of maintenance, and VND19 billion of repair. Currently, the annual average allocated fund to this activity is about VND7.1 billion (about 15-16%).

The district expects more supports from the province

According to Ha Duy Loi, Head of Dau Tieng district Urban Management Office, the reason for increasing the maintenance fund from 4-5% to 15-16% is the large geographical area, long old arterial roads of the locality. In addition, road surface are mainly asphalted, thus the road quality is no longer guaranteed, and must be maintained regularly. According to Mr Loi, legal documents on capital construction investment are frequent changed, causing many difficulties in the works of management, investment and construction settlement. But the biggest obstacle is that the district fund for road maintenance is limited, does not meet the actual demand. Therefore, roads have rapidly deteriorated, obstructed traffic and transportation of the people. In addition, overloaded vehicles exceeding the designed capacity of the roads have also deteriorated roads in the district.

At the survey of provincial People’s Council Economic - Budget Committee, Dau Tieng district People's Committee proposed more financial supports from provincial State budget, funds of road maintenance, and other capital resources for a regular maintenance of district roads. The district also believed that the supervision and inspection on traffic road projects under the PPC’s decision is essential; and to perform well this task, Dau Tieng district asked PPC for more personnel, funds and instructions.

Reported by Duy Chi – Translated by Ngoc Huynh