Focus on rural governance: integrating nostalgia into hometown construction

Core Reading

This year’s No. 1 Central Document proposed to strengthen planning management as the basic work of rural revitalization. Since December last year, Lincang, Yunnan Province, has implemented an action involving 10,000 cadres to participate in hometown planning and construction. City public officials from Lincang who have gone out to the countryside are invited to use the holidays to return to their hometowns to plan development with the villagers, so as to put the rural revitalization plan first.

Since the planning map was obtained, Zhao Guohua had new hope for Zhengqi Pond: he looked up from the top and saw where the dyed rice flower scenic spot was, where the Chinese herbal medicine cultivation area was, and where the ancient tea post road tourist area was. Guidance is quite confident. The Zhengqitang Village Group belongs to Nasai Village, Mengku Town, Shuangjiang Lahu Wa Bulang Dai Autonomous County, Lincang City, Yunnan Province. It is located in Lincang City on the southwest border. Zhao Guohua is the group leader. In early May this year, the Zhengqitang Village Group’s first village plan was voted and approved by the villagers’ assembly. The ordinary village suddenly had new prospects. This is a microcosm of Lincang City’s cadres’ return to their hometowns.

In December last year, Lincang City implemented an action involving 10,000 cadres in hometown planning and construction. As of now, more than 26,000 cadres in the city have participated in it, and more than 10,000 planning group meetings have been held in every village. These civil servants from Lincang who came out of the countryside used their rest time to work with the folks in their hometown to create a unique and implementable development blueprint.

Nostalgia is not just in dreams

Help the village to sort out their family background, clarify their ideas, and straighten out their relationships, so that the returning cadres can be trained

The action of returning cadres to their hometowns has been launched At that time, Li Benju was still supervising poverty alleviation in Xueshan Town, Fengqing County. She is the deputy director of Lincang Municipal Agriculture and Rural Affairs Bureau and a native of Zhengqitang. After arranging the work at hand on the weekend of January 23, she drove more than four hours back to her hometown to take over the Zhengqitang village planning as the leader. In four months, I returned to the village 18 times, held 12 planning group and village cadre meetings, and changed the draft of the planning map seven times.

There are 6,511 groups in Lincang City that need planning. According to professional planning, each village costs 30,000 to 40,000 yuan, which is very expensive and difficult for the local government to afford. Zhao Zijie, deputy mayor of Lincang City, said that if a professional planning and design institute is hired to do it, it is often difficult to adapt to the local conditions and it is easy to end up with thousands of villages being the same. Li Hongwen, member of the Standing Committee of the Lincang Municipal Party Committee and Minister of Organization, believes that the cadres who have gone out from the village have a sense of responsibility and knowledge. The return to their hometowns is a large-scale test and exercise for the cadres, and it is also an exploratory practice for villagers to become the masters of the village.

On January 21, Lincang City held a special training meeting to explain the ideas, content, methods, approval and time steps of village planning to returning cadres, and required returning cadres to take the lead in setting up a planning group. The on-the-spot investigation and discussion with villagers put forward a plan that must comply with the ecological environment protection red line, basic farmland protection line, forestry ecological red line, regional traffic control line, water source protection, etc., forming "two maps, one book, one table and one civil agreement" (i.e., natural village Village area planning map, natural village village planning map, planning instructions, planning project statistics table, village rules and regulations). After the results are reviewed and reasonable by the relevant departments, they will be submitted to the village representative meeting for voting.

The Yang family group in Laoxu Village, Yun County, is located in a cold mountainous area. The people's income mainly relies on migrant work. Yang Tianqiang, who works at the Lincang Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection, became the leader. He believes that the return to his hometown has three meanings: the resources and family structure have been clarified, the revitalization ideas have been clarified, and the relationship between villagers has been straightened out. The Yang family group's plan only cost three to four thousand yuan to complete. It was funded by several public officials out of their own pockets. It included village sewage treatment, parking lots, renovation of inefficient tea gardens, rural cemeteries, etc. Yang Tianqiang said: "I have been away from my hometown for many years, and now my homesickness is not only in my dreams, but also injected into the planning map."

Currently, Lincang City has established 90 three-level work leading groups and set up planning consulting service stations 90, 6,511 public officials were identified as the leaders of natural village planning, more than 200,000 people participated, and more than 6,200 natural villages completed villagers' votes. 1,333 natural villages with no public officials outside the village also have “bottom plans” through county-level coordination.

Planning does not just rely on pen and paper

People enter the village, their hearts enter their homes, their feet enter the picture, and their emotions enter the picture, bringing modern concepts to the whole village

Back Although the township cadres have knowledge and long-cherished aspirations, they have been away from home for many years. In order to complete this task, Li Benju and members of the planning team visited the ancient post roads, ancient battlefields and ancient tea gardens in the village, and listened to many legends and stories.

In her view, when cadres return to their hometowns to make a plan, they need "four things": people enter the village, enter the home with their heart, enter the ground with their feet, and enter the picture with emotion. Only by visiting every household for investigation, and then measuring and surveying with their feet, can the planning map be emotionally charged. Without being irrational.

Najing Village in Shahe Township, Shuangjiang, is a Dai village. It is surrounded by mountains and rivers and is rich in resources and people. Xiao Yunxiang, who works in Yalian Township, Yongde County, often went to his hometown after becoming the leader of the planning. Xiao Yunxiang has lived on campus since he was in elementary school and only goes home two or three times a year after working. However, he has been working in rural areas and is familiar with the grassroots situation. He said: "To make a good plan, we need to discuss it and make the villagers' own plan."

The members of the planning team include returning cadres, village cadres, and members of the Rural Revitalization Council. Xiao Yunxiang used "addition, subtraction, multiplication and division" This method can be used to describe the work of the group: extensive solicitation of villagers’ opinions is addition; on-the-spot investigation and demonstration is subtraction; integrating the plan into the development plan of the county and township is multiplication; adjusting villagers’ interests through planning is division. He also found relevant policies and regulations, and used the existing results of the previous new rural construction and village environment improvement to "often work overtime until one or two o'clock at night" for this plan.

Najing Village has a good foundation, with coffee, silkworms, nuts and other cash crops, and 37 households have opened 9 farmhouses. The planning team focused on area planning, collective economy, and integration of the three industries. Xiao Yunhua, the team leader of the village, has been participating in it and is very happy that the cadres have returned to their hometowns. “The cadres who have returned to their hometowns are knowledgeable and creative. For example, Shuangtouqing used to be a barren ravine. Now, fish fry have been put into the ravine. Children from the city come to touch it on weekends. Fish, I love it!”

The reporter found that the cadres returned to their hometowns to bring modern concepts to the development of the village. They designed public facilities such as parking lots, garbage pools, and breeding areas in terms of hardware, and they designed software in terms of software. Rural revitalization councils, cooperatives, village rules and regulations, etc. have been improved, and collective economic development has also been taken into consideration.

Development is not just about the immediate situation

Human resources are sinking, local resources are activated, and the implementation plan must be carried out step by step and long-term

Bangdong Village, Bangdong Township, Linxiang District "Xigui" Pu'er tea is famous, and the ancient tree tea sells for more than 6,000 yuan per kilogram. The reporter saw in the Xigui Village group that within the Maunglu Mountain area of ??the core ancient tree tea production area, motor vehicles drove directly over, and people came and went eating, drinking, and defecating, which put pressure on the ecological environment of the tea garden. Yang Shaocha, the head of Bangdong Township, introduced that Lincang City is building a "Xigui Characteristic Town" and is currently recruiting investment. In conjunction with superior planning, Xigui's planning focuses on environmental management of tea gardens and the establishment of associations for self-management to avoid copycats of Pu'er tea names. Private buildings are built indiscriminately, and the old path of "chaos comes when one gets rich".

With the improvement of rural living standards, the functional layout of traditional villages has changed dramatically: on the one hand, when villagers get rich, they build two-story buildings, but garbage collection and sewage treatment are still difficult, and many roads in the village are congested. On the other hand, after the poverty alleviation is completed, the development and consolidation of poor villages also need to have a clear development path. Villages that are getting rich need planning, and villages that are getting out of poverty need planning even more.

Zhao Guohua said that there is no need to worry about selling the ancient tree tea in Zhengqitang. The average net income per farmer of more than 50 households in the village has been conservatively said to be 10,000 yuan, and not a single household has been registered as a poor household. However, the village team is at a loss as to where to go and how to move the Zhengqitang to a higher level. "We also understand the principle that 'lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets', but how to make good use of the mountains, forests, ancient tea and the culture left by our ancestors? We have neither experience nor resources. When the cadres come back, they can make up for this shortcoming and develop in the future. There is a 'good charter'," Zhao Guohua said.

The plan is ready, how to implement it? In this regard, Lincang City will select a batch of excellent planning plans and promote their gradual implementation. In addition, the village will also use the plans to attract investment. However, when the plan is implemented, will it cause cadres to use funds for projects in their hometowns, making it unfair among villages? Zhang Long, member of the Standing Committee of the Shuangjiang County Party Committee and Minister of Organization, explained: "Plan formulation and implementation are relatively separated. Cadres returning to their hometowns mainly contribute their wisdom to rural revitalization. The implementation of the plan must be carried out step by step and long-term, combined with the development of the area. The main body of implementation is still The villagers themselves."

"Using nostalgia as a link to promote cadres and human resources to sink into villages can better mobilize the people's initiative and voice to participate in village planning," Zhang Long said. With this "concentric circle", Lincang's rural revitalization will be more real and beautiful.