It has been nearly 3 months since the groundbreaking date, the Cho Moi - Bac Kan expressway worth more than 5,700 billion VND has not been able to be constructed simultaneously due to land clearance problems.
The project is invested by Project Management Board 2 (Ministry of Transport), starting construction in mid-March 2025.
The route is nearly 29km long, with a scale of 4 lanes, a design speed of 80km/h, a roadbed width of 22m, with 16 bridges and 2 overpasses.
The starting point connects with the Thai Nguyen - Cho Moi route (in Cho Moi district), the end point connects with the Bac Kan - Cao Bang route (in Bac Kan city).
According to the investigation of Lao Dong Newspaper, the project directly affects 1,210 households, organizations and individuals, of which 175 households must be relocated.
However, the site clearance progress is facing many difficulties, causing contractors to not be able to carry out construction simultaneously.
According to the investor's representative, as of early June 2025, Bac Kan province has only handed over 27.2/255.14 hectares, reaching 10.6% of the volume; equivalent to 2.13/28.4km of the entire route. The new contractor has deployed 2 construction teams of the service road at Km26 and Km28.
Mr. Mac Van Nghiep - Project Executive Director (Project Management Board 2) said that the site clearance work is still slow compared to the plan due to problems in applying the new Land Law.
It was not until December 2024 that the Provincial People's Committee issued specific instructions, causing the determination and approval of land prices in localities to be prolonged.
In addition, some households buy and sell land by handwritten documents, without legal documents, causing difficulties in inventorying and verifying the origin.
In addition, there are still many poor and near-poor households building houses on agricultural land. Meanwhile, the resettlement area has not been built, affecting the relocation progress.
In Cho Moi district, compensation has been paid in 3 installments, but only 50% of households have received the money.
Many cases have not agreed due to the related compensation price as well as the lack of clear support mechanism for assets outside the residential land area such as trees and structures.
As a construction unit of more than 20km of the expressway, Phuong Thanh Traffic Investment and Construction Joint Stock Company (Phuong Thanh Company) has only reached about 800m of the site.
According to Mr. Tran Ba Luan - Executive Director of Phuong Thanh Company, the unit has advanced a part of the cost to support expenses related to temporary relocation and land lease.
At the same time, coordinate with the government to encourage people to hand over the site soon, creating conditions for construction on schedule.
Regarding the project implementation, Mr. Dinh Quang Tuyen - Permanent Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Bac Kan province said that the project is one of the major projects of the province.
Therefore, the locality is urgently and drastically implementing the work of supporting and compensating for site clearance for households in the affected area.
One of the major problems at present is the construction of resettlement areas. According to the survey, up to 80-90% of households want to take care of their new places of residence instead of going to resettlement areas.
The locality has supported an amount of no more than 200 million VND/household, but many households have not agreed because the cost of building new housing is higher.
Faced with that reality, the province is considering increasing the level of support for households that are self-resettled, and at the same time adding a policy to support assets on agricultural land that have been recovered, relocated cemeteries, temporary housing rental and other arising costs.
"The province's goal is to hand over enough land in June so that the contractor can organize construction simultaneously," Mr. Tuyen affirmed.
