Currently, the whole country has 89,574 villages and residential groups after reducing 47,250 villages and residential groups in 10 years of implementing Resolution No. 18-NQ/TW and current legal regulations.
In Directive No. 21/CT-TTg, the Prime Minister requested that before June 30, the People's Committees of provinces and cities direct the commune-level People's Committees to develop a project to arrange villages and residential groups; organize to collect people's opinions in accordance with the law; submit the project to the commune-level People's Council for approval to ensure publicity, transparency and create consensus in the implementation process.
In Hanoi, the City People's Committee has issued Official Dispatch No. 2341 requesting the implementation of the Directive on arranging villages and residential groups and arranging, using, regimes, and policies for non-specialized personnel to be implemented urgently, synchronously, strictly, and with progress control.
In Can Tho, Director of the City Department of Home Affairs Pham Thi Phuong said that according to the provisions of Decree 185/2026, through review, the whole city currently has 582 hamlets (under 400 households) and 371 areas (under 550 households) that must be arranged according to regulations because they do not meet the standards for household size.
The Department of Home Affairs has advised the City People's Committee to issue Plan No. 250 on deploying the arrangement of hamlets and areas. In the coming time, the unit will continue to coordinate with the Organizing Committee to advise the Standing Committee of the City Party Committee to issue an official dispatch directing the establishment of a Steering Committee to organize implementation in accordance with the provisions of the Decree and Directive.
Localities such as Phu Tho, Tuyen Quang, Lao Cai, Thai Nguyen... are also urgently reviewing, developing projects and implementing steps to arrange villages and residential groups.
Talking to Lao Dong Newspaper, Dr. Doan Van Tinh - Deputy Head of the Faculty of Human Resource Management, Academy of Public Administration and Management (Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics) - said that the time pressure is very high when the June 30 deadline is approaching. However, progress must always go hand in hand with quality and stability.
Communication work must go one step ahead to change the culture and psychology of hesitation of both officials and people, ensuring "smart thinking, solid institutions".
We need to make people understand that mergers are to improve the public service experience, improve service quality and people's satisfaction, absolutely not to cause trouble. Absolutely comply with the order and procedures of dossiers specified in Decree 185/2026/ND-CP to ensure legality" - he emphasized.
In addition, localities need to make breakthroughs in digitization and interconnection of civil status and population data of merged units in the spirit of "leading technology, smooth data".
He noted to minimize the situation where after the merger, people's data is congested, causing disruption to the implementation of personal administrative procedures. According to him, the satisfaction and unbroken experience of the people must be taken as a measure of success.
Finally, merging means the surplus of a force of non-specialized personnel, the Party Committee and local government need to analyze thoroughly, comprehensively, and fairly, showing humanity in solving the problem of surplus personnel.
Localities need to thoroughly apply Decree 185/2026/ND-CP to implement the payment of staff streamlining regimes in a timely, humane and satisfactory manner; and at the same time organize training and fostering to liberate capacity for new personnel taking over large areas.
