East China’s Jiangsu province has insisted on early implementation, early start of work, and early results in the transformation of shanty towns, so that more needy people could live in affordable housing and improve their living conditions. From January to April this year, the province has over-fulfilled the targets for the number of newly-launched new houses and newly-renovated old houses in the shanty towns.
Zhu Jiabao, a 72-year-old citizen of Nanjing, and his wife Yang Huilan, have moved into a new home in the Nanjing Daishan Affordable Housing Project for more than half a year. In the past, the whole family lived in a crowded and broken bungalow which is cold in winter and hot in summer for 40 to 50 years.
In July 2015, the shantytowns where the elderly couples lived were demolished. They thought that they would have to live in a rented house for three or five years. However, it was less than two years before they got the key to a 75-square-meter two-room apartment for low-income people, which has brought earth-shaking changes to their life.
In the implementation of the transformation of shantytowns, the province has put the renovation projects in place from the planned site selection to the construction procedures in advance by securing the funds and national policy loans as soon as possible.
In the transformation of shantytowns, Jiangsu has strictly implemented the target responsibility system management by assigning tasks and determining the target responsibilities, notifying each month the construction progress of the shantytowns in various areas, strengthening supervision and inspection so that the tasks of shantytowns transformation was finalized ahead of schedule.
Jiangsu ranked first nationwide in the commendation issued in early May by the General Office of the State Council for its remarkable achievements in the renovation of shanty towns reconstruction of rural dilapidated buildings.
According to the plan, in 2018, Jiangsu will start renovation of 215,000 dilapidated houses and urban villages in the shanty towns with basic completion of 170,000 units so far. From January to April of this year, the province has started construction of 118,100 new units with basic completion of 102,100 units, realizing 55% and 60% of the tasks for the entire year and over-achieving the schedule.
Renovating shanty towns is one of the important measures the country has taken to meet the housing needs of all people. In recent years, the Chinese government has stepped up rebuilding efforts, and accelerated renovation of shanty towns and urban villages where about 100 million people are living.
(Source: Jiangsu International Channel)
