Accelerating the Expansion of Water Supply Pipelines at Several Rural Centralized Water Supply Projects

​(News Portal – Dong Nai) - This is one of the solutions presented by Acting Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Vo Tan Duc in a report related to rural clean water issues at the recent 18th Session of the 10th Provincial People's Council.

Rural residents in Trang Bom district buy clean water for everyday use. Photo: Ban Mai 

Striving to achieve the target of 84.5%

The Acting Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee stated that to achieve the 2024 rural clean water supply target of 84.5%, the province will focus on implementing comprehensive solutions in the coming period.

Accordingly, the province will expedite the investment to expand water supply pipelines at several rural centralized water supply projects such as: the water supply project in Phu Dien commune, Tan Phu district; the inter-communal water supply project in Phu Tan - Phu Loi, Dinh Quan district; and the water supply project in Phu Ly commune, Vinh Cuu district.
Investment will be made to connect water supply pipelines of enterprises (including: 407 Investment and Trade Joint Stock Company; Water Joint Stock Companies of Dong Nai, Nhon Trach, Long Khanh, Ho Cau Moi, Gia Tan). Efforts will continue to encourage households in districts and Long Khanh city to install household water filtration equipment for residents in areas without centralized water supply projects.

The Acting Chairman emphasized that the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development should coordinate with localities to enhance communication efforts to raise public awareness about using clean water. Meanwhile, the pace of installing distribution and branch pipelines, as well as water meters for newly invested water systems, should be accelerated to maximize plant capacity, rapidly increase the number of households using clean water, and improve the efficiency of the projects.

Efforts to overcome difficulties 

The Acting Chairman added that the province aims for 84.5% of rural households to have access to clean water by 2024 (51% from centralized water supply projects, 33.5% from household water filtration equipment). As of June 2024, the percentage of rural households using standardized clean water was 84.08%. The percentage of households using water from centralized water projects increased by 4.49% compared to 2023.

From 2023 to June 2024, the province completed the construction and commissioning of five new rural centralized water supply projects with a total investment of about 645 billion VND, a capacity of 105,720 m3/day and night, supplying water to approximately 37,811 households. Additionally, five projects were repaired and upgraded with an investment of 52.9 billion VND, providing 1,390 m3 of clean water every day and night, supplying water to about 2,754 households.

Regarding pipeline expansion and connection investment, the People's Committees of Xuan Loc, Vinh Cuu, Long Thanh, Nhon Trach districts, and six enterprises invested in 598km of urban water supply pipelines to serve rural residents, with an investment of 583 billion VND, serving about 34,429 rural households.

For centralized water supply project investments, the province is planning the investment and basic design of eight projects, with a design capacity of 38,450 m3/day and night and a total investment of about 473 billion VND. The People's Committees of districts and six water supply enterprises also planned to install about 961km of connection pipelines from urban water supply pipelines, with a total investment of about 745 billion VND in 2024.

For installing household water filtration equipment, districts and cities have mobilized households to install about 1,607 water filtration devices, with an investment of about 8.43 billion VND in 2024.

Despite the achievements, the Acting Chairman highlighted many difficulties and obstacles in increasing the proportion of people using clean water.​

Many rural households prefer using water from drilled or dug wells to avoid additional water costs, which hampers the effectiveness of centralized water supply projects. Currently, in many rural areas, the main pipelines of urban water supply projects pass through, but the investment in branch pipelines has not been effective for investors due to the low connection rate of households, slowing the expansion compared to projections. Additionally, for projects using socialized capital, there are obstacles in the process and procedures for selecting investors; land allocation and leasing procedures, which delay project implementation...