Son La irrigation infrastructure upgraded thanks to WB8 financial support

Currently, in Son La Province, more than 2,600 irrigation works with a total length of over 3,000km are operating to serve local life and production. These works ensure water for over 30,000 ha of crops, aquaculture, and flood drainage in a rural and urban area of 64,600 ha. However, due to the complex topography with high slopes, Son La province suffers a lot of damages every year due to floods. Reservoir and dam systems and many irrigation works have been heavily damaged or are degrading.

To cope with the situation, the People's Committee of Son La Province every year has issued many policies to strengthen, repair, and upgrade irrigation infrastructure to ensure the dams' safety, maintain water sources for irrigation and daily life of people in the area.

The Committee has directed local authorities and agencies to regularly check, review and assess conditions of all irrigation works, reservoirs, and dams to timely detect and handle damages and related problems. It has also allocated and prioritized funds for repairs ensuring the works’ safety at the same time focusing on developing plans to prevent, combat, and respond to possible natural disasters.

It has implemented the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Decision No. 4638/QD-BNN-HTQT dated November 9, 2015, on approving the feasibility study of a project on repairing and improving the dam safety system (Project No. WB8) funded by the World Bank (WB). The project carried out from 2016 to 2022 aims to support a program on water reservoir safety by repairing and upgrading priority dams, strengthening their safety, management, operational capacity, and protecting locals and the socio-economic infrastructure in downstream areas.

On October 30, 2017, the Committee issued Decision No. 2785/QD-UBND approving the feasibility study and dam safety report of the subproject on repairing and improving the provincial dam system in Son La.

Accordingly, the project was assigned to the Management Board of construction and investment in Son La agriculture and rural development project to work as an investor, for the implementation period from 2016-2020 in Thuan Chau and Mai Son districts. The project’s total investment is VND140.88 billion (equivalent to USD6.26 million), of which World Bank had supported USD5.93 million and the province’s capital was about USD0.33 million.

Mr. Nguyen Van The, Director of Son La Management Board for agricultural and rural development projects said the project to repair and improve the safety of the dam in Son La Province started in November 2018 and was fully completed by March 2020. On April 16, 2020, the Management Board handed over the project to Son La Irrigation Works Management and Exploitation Co., Ltd. to put into operation and management according to regulations.

According to The, during the implementation process, the Management Board had followed all management procedures for domestic and foreign investment capital meeting the project's target inquiries and tasks.

In addition, the Management Board had regularly reported about the project’s implementation process following regulations of the Central Management Board of Irrigation Projects (CPO) and at the request of competent management authorities. Up to now, the project has been audited by the specialized state auditor 5 (CN5) and has been submitted to the Son La Department of Finance for approval.

Moreover, the project has made an important contribution to reducing accident risks to dams and reservoirs, ensuring safety for local people in the downstream areas, increasing irrigated agricultural areas in line with the National Strategy on Responding to Climate Change and the National Program on Poverty Sustainable Reduction, and helped boost the economic restructuring in the province, in general, and in the agricultural sector, in particular...

On that basis, the Management Board proposed the Directorate of Water Resources to consider and submit to the competent authorities the adjustment and allocation of capital structure for sub-projects on repairing and improving dam safety in Son La Province (by reducing loan and increasing reciprocal capital structure from more than VND7.43 billion to VND9.63 billion) so that the Management Board can pay for item works that did not use the loan to avoid debt of basic construction capital...