Proposal to coordinate mining materials in North-South expressway component projects

Accordingly, the Ministry of Transport said that the North-South Expressway Construction Project in the East phase 2021 - 2025 is an important national project whose investment policy was decided by the National Assembly in Resolution No. 44/2022/QH15 dated January 11, 2022, with a length of 721.2 km divided into 12 component projects with the Ministry of Transport as the managing agency and assigned to 7 Project Management Boards under the Ministry as investors.

During the implementation process, in some component projects, there was an excess volume of excavated roadbed soil that had to be transported and dumped (component projects Bung - Van Ninh, Quy Nhon - Chi Thanh, etc.), while some component projects did not have enough roadbed materials when coordinating from the excavated ground, so they had to exploit soil from the mines for filling (component projects Van Ninh - Cam Lo, Chi Thanh - Van Phong, etc.). Therefore, investors have planned to coordinate soil materials from the excavated ground to take advantage of filling the roadbed between component projects, helping to speed up construction progress because they do not have to go through licensing procedures, exploit from new mines, reduce the amount of waste and save costs.

“In order to unify the direction, management and implementation of the above-mentioned work, ensuring compliance with legal regulations, the Ministry of Transport requests the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to provide comments on the utilization and coordination of excavated soil materials for filling between component projects, which are mineral exploitation activities for common construction materials within the land area of ​​the North-South Expressway Construction Project in the Eastern Region for the period 2021-2025. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment is requested to pay attention and provide comments soon to facilitate the implementation of the Project to ensure the required progress,” the document of the Ministry of Transport stated.

The representative of the Department of Construction Investment Management (Ministry of Transport) said that it must be understood that the 12 component projects of phase 2 being implemented are the same project (North-South Expressway Construction Project, Eastern Phase 2021-2025) with the same mechanism and policies stipulated in the resolutions of the National Assembly and the Government, so the coordination of material sources in the projects will be favorable. However, many localities currently still understand that each component project is a separate project, so coordination will be very difficult.

As one of the component projects that is requesting to coordinate land resources from other component projects, the representative of Project Management Board 7 (investor) said that they have sent a document requesting the Ministry of Transport to coordinate excess land resources (about 200,000 m3) at the adjacent Quy Nhon - Chi Thanh project, also in Phu Yen province, to the XL1 package of the Chi Thanh - Van Phong project in the same area.

According to the representative of Project Management Board 7, the reason for the above proposal is because the XL1 package is located right next to the Quy Nhon - Chi Thanh project, so land coordination will be convenient in terms of distance as well as transportation costs.

Mr. Luu Thanh Quang, an officer of Thang Long Construction Corporation (one of the contractors for the XL1 package) said that the contractor is currently short of about 100,000 m3 of construction work, so he has sent a document requesting the investor to remove the difficulties.

Regarding the construction progress of the Chi Thanh - Van Phong project, Project Management Board 7 said that contractors have mobilized 42 construction teams with 394 machines and equipment and thousands of workers. However, the implementation on the route is still slow.

According to Project Management Board 7, the locality has handed over more than 96.4%. However, in reality, the contractor has approached to construct about more than 90% of the land, the site is still scattered and not continuous. The main reasons are that the land has not been assigned to the owner, the approval of payment is slow and a few have complaints about unit prices, compensation statistics... Most concentrated in Dong Hoa town and Tuy An district. The construction of resettlement areas is prolonged. In particular, the relocation of technical infrastructure works is slow, not meeting the construction progress of the project.

Currently, contractors are also having difficulty negotiating land rental prices with households for non-public waste dumps. Some locations planned by the province as waste dumps have very difficult access roads, not ensuring the progress of waste transportation and dumping.

Therefore, Project Management Board 7 recommends that localities thoroughly handle "rice and bean" ground locations, locations where hills of soil and rocks are dug up to exploit materials for filling and reusing the roadbed, areas for treating weak soil, and bridge locations.

Along with that, the locality needs to complete resettlement areas soon, arrange for people to move in early to hand over the site to the construction contractor. In addition, the localities need to relocate high-voltage, medium-voltage and low-voltage power systems soon. Special priority is given to bridge construction locations and weak ground treatment. The investor has also asked contractors on the route to increase the number of workers to ensure the project is completed on schedule.

A representative of the Department of Transport of Phu Yen province said that for infrastructure bottlenecks, mainly the power grid, the province has directed localities to relocate locations that directly affect construction first. Ensure that locations that directly affect construction will be relocated in October 2023. The province is also focusing on resolving problems related to infrastructure and material sources. For resettlement areas, localities must complete by the end of September this year to arrange land for people to build houses, handing over 100% of the site to investors.