Flood-resilient house building programme benefits over 19,200 households

Hanoi (VNA) – As many as 19,244 poor households in the central region have received support to build and repair their houses to become more resilient to storm and flooding, thanks to the Government’s policy to assist them in the field.

So far, 661.6 billion VND (28.76 million USD) has been spent on the work, including 249.6 billion VND from the State budget, 192billion VND of loans from the Vietnam Bank for Social Policies, and the rest from other sources.

The scheme covers 14 localities from Thanh Hoa to Binh Thuan, but Binh Thuan has been put out of the programme.

Six out of the 13 engaging localities have completed the allocation of the aid, while the rest has finished 70 percent.

Each household in poor localities received 14 million VND, while those in areas with extremely difficult conditions got 16 million VND each, and the remaining beneficiaries enjoyed 12 million VND each.

At the same time, soft loans have been offered to the households.

Over the years, programmes to support poor households in the central region to build and upgrade their houses to respond to storms and floods have helped ensure safety for the beneficiaries, thus contributing to the economic development in the localities.

Thanks to the programmes, the number of damaged houses and death toll causedby flooding were reduced to 126,000 and 57 in 2011, respectively, from 263,000 and 179 in 2009, showed the statistics from the Ministry of Construction.

The ministry reported that the programme to support locals in flood-hit localities in the central region inhouse construction and repairing has benefited more than 170,000 households, of whom 122,450 enjoyed newly-built houses.

Initial reports from localities showed that no houses built and upgraded with aids from the programme were seriously damaged in the recent flooding./.