Poverty Alleviation of Ministry of Transport

　　【Overview】 Transportation is an important foundation and guarantee for poverty alleviation and development and it is an important basis for the implementation of the spirit of the central work conference on poverty alleviation and development and the central rural work conference and for the poor to shake off poverty and build a modern civilized society to accelerate the development of transportation in poor areas.

　　In 2011, the construction of rural roads with investment of 201 billion Yuan was completed. The central government continued to increase investment in rural road building and allocated a total of 43.8 billion Yuan for it, up 38%, of which 41.8 billion Yuan was vehicle purchase tax funds from the Ministry of Transport and 2 billion Yuan was central budget funds issued by the National Development and Reform Commission. In the allocation of capital investment, the central government continued to give priority to the western minority, border and impoverished regions. The vehicle purchase tax funds for the east, central and western regions respectively accounted for 9.6%, 25.9% and 64.5% of the total, while the investment in the minority, border and impoverished regions accounted for 52%. As for the construction focus, in the western regions, the government mainly supported the asphalt (cement) road building in the remaining towns and guaranteed the construction of asphalt (cement) roads in administrative villages; in the east and central areas, the government mainly arranged the construction of asphalt (cement) roads in the remaining administrative villages and the county road reconstruction projects. In 2011, China completed the reconstruction of rural roads of 190,300 km. As of the end of 2011, the total length of the rural highroads in China reached 3.537 million km, the proportion of township highroads and asphalt (cement) roads respectively reached 99.39% and 83.89% and the proportion of the highroads and asphalt (cement) roads in western administrative villages respectively reached 98.27% and 50.38%.

　　While vigorously promoting the construction of rural roads, we also made new progress in the integrated development of urban and rural areas. In 2011, the government formulated the “Opinions on Actively Promoting the Integrated Development of Urban and Rural Roads”, held the on-the-spot meeting on the integrated development of urban and rural roads, and issued 7.93 billion Yuan of oil price subsidy for urban and rural passenger transport to effectively boost the sustainable development of rural passenger transport. As of the end of 2011, 98.12% of the towns and 91.47% of the administrative villages were equipped with regular buses, 0.12 and 1.47 percentage points higher than that of 2010, effectively solving the road problem of the rural masses.

　　【Fixed-point poverty alleviation】 In accordance with the instructions from the leadership of the State Council and the arrangements of LGOP, the Ministry of Transport conducted fixed-point poverty alleviation in Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan Province. In March 2009 and April 2011, it selected two batches of liaison groups to carry out anti-poverty work in Aba Prefecture. In November 2011, the poverty alleviation liaison group (the first batch) of the Ministry of Transport in Aba Prefecture was titled as “Advanced Collective for National Poverty Alleviation and Development” by the State Council Leading Group of Poverty Alleviation and Development。

　　As the party committee of the Ministry of Transport attached great importance to work, smooth progress was made in the fixed-point poverty alleviation of the Ministry of Transport. The construction of rural roads and infrastructure in Aba Prefecture changed the backward conditions of rural areas, shortened the distance between villages and towns and greatly improved the production and living environment and quality of the farmers. In 2011, per capita net income of farmers and herdsmen in Xiaojin, Rangtang and Heishui respectively reached 4,090 Yuan, 3,600 Yuan and 3,745 Yuan, with an increase of 1,938 Yuan, 1,869 Yuan and 1,829 Yuan over 2007. As of 2011, the total length of the highroads in Aba Prefecture reached 12,296 km, with an increase of more than 5000 kilometers. In the whole prefecture, 218 towns were equipped with (asphalt) concrete roads, accounting for 97.7% of the prefecture's 223 towns; and 1166 administrative villages had access to highroads, accounting for 87.5% of the total (1354). Among them, 321 administrative villages were equipped with (asphalt) concrete roads, accounting for 23.71% of the total administrative villages. The improvement of the road traffic conditions greatly promoted the development and utilization of the resources of the poor counties in tourism, mineral, water, energy, farm animal and special products and boosted the economic development of local areas. In 2011, Xiaojin, Rangtang and Heishui County respectively recorded GDP of 768 million Yuan, 466 million Yuan and 1.026 billion Yuan, with an increase of 305 million Yuan, 225 million Yuan and 532 million Yuan over 2007.

　　【Institutional construction for fixed-point poverty alleviation】 To ensure the orderly implementation of traffic poverty alleviation projects, the Working Team for the second batch of fixed-point poverty alleviation of the Ministry of Transport continued to strengthen the institutional construction. First, it prepared the “Interim Measures on management performance appraisal of traffic poverty alleviation construction projects in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture” and the “Opinions of Aba Prefecture on Further Strengthening the Management of Poverty Alleviation by Transportation” and put forward clear requirements on the planning management, construction management, quality supervision, implementation guarantee and performance appraisal of poverty alleviation projects. The introduction of these measures provided effective protection for the construction of transport-based poverty relief projects. Now, the leading group is preparing the “Management Measures on the Use of Funds for Transport Poverty Alleviation in Aba Prefecture” to further standardize the management and use of relief funds in transport-based poverty alleviation, strengthen the supervision on anti-poverty funds and ensure the fund security for traffic poverty alleviation. Second, the traffic poverty alleviation office was set up in the Prefecture Bureau of Transportation. The establishment of the poverty alleviation office strengthened our contacts with relevant counties and prefectures’ departments and guaranteed the timely and orderly implementation of transport poverty alleviation. Third, it strengthened the organization and leadership and improved the traffic poverty alleviation mechanism and the government of various counties attached great importance to traffic poverty alleviation. In the project construction, according to their work responsibilities, objectives and tasks, the relevant departments of the counties worked together to deal with the project management, land (woodland) requisition, housing (rod line) demolition, law and order protection, dinas distribution, soil and water conservation and environmental protection to form joint force for the orderly implementation of poverty relief projects. Fourth, the inspection mechanism was established. The Working Group on Poverty Alleviation organized regular supervision on the traffic poverty alleviation projects jointly with the Quality Supervision Station, Construction and Management Division and Agricultural Development Department of the prefecture to ensure the project quality, safety, progress and capital allocation. The Prefecture Highway Quality Supervision sub-station carried out quality inspection at least once every quarter on the traffic poverty alleviation projects, enhanced project quality supervision and inspection to ensure the high quality of projects, and announced the inspection results in various forms in a certain range, guaranteeing the quality, safety and progress of the construction of traffic poverty alleviation projects.

　　【Implementation of poverty alleviation projects】  To better support the traffic poverty alleviation in Aba Prefecture, on the basis of vigorously supporting the post-disaster reconstruction of Aba Prefecture, overcoming the difficulties of a smaller amount of vehicle purchase tax revenue, the party committee of the Ministry of Transport decided to significantly increase the financial funds for traffic poverty alleviation and arrange 100 million Yuan of special funds for the traffic poverty alleviation in Aba Prefecture. Sichuan Provincial Department of Communications shall provide matching funds to support the work. Meanwhile, it planned for and implemented 26 traffic poverty alleviation projects launched from 2009-2011, including 8 launched in 2011 with planned investment of 121.87 million Yuan. Now, one project has been completed and seven are being constructed with a total investment of 58.32 million Yuan, accounting for 47.8% of the total. At the same time, we raised the projects funds from various channels and strived for one million Yuan of charity funds from China Merchants Group to support the Cement Road Hardening of Gouerguang Village of Jinchuan County.

　　The completion of these projects will comprehensively improve the export channel service capabilities and tourism and mineral resources development capabilities of Heishui, Xiaojin and Rangtang – three key counties for national poverty alleviation, solve the road traffic problem of the masses, play an important role in improving the county and township highroad network and lay a solid traffic basis for local farmers and herdsmen to shake off poverty and get rich.

　　【Traffic poverty alleviation in contiguous poor areas】  On December 14, the Ministry of Transport held a party group meeting to convey the spirit of the central work conference on poverty alleviation and development. The units affiliated to the Ministry of Transport were required to understand the overall deployment of the central pro-poor strategy and the new characteristics and new requirements of a new round of anti-poverty work from a strategic perspective, enhance the sense of mission and sense of responsibility, put forward concrete initiatives to implement the spirit of the meeting based on the actual situation of transportation and effectively promote the scientific and coordinated development of transportation in contiguous poor areas. On December 29, Vice Minister Weng Mengyong chaired the first meeting of the leading group of poverty alleviation and development. The meeting announced the establishment of the Leading Group and the Poverty Alleviation Office of the Ministry of Transport and approved in principle the planning for the traffic poverty alleviation on the next stage and the “Planning for Traffic Poverty Alleviation and Development in Contiguous Poor Areas”.