Xuyên Tâm Canal cleanup project to start work in 2024. — Photo plo.vn

HCM CITY — After prolonged delays, the project of dredging, environmental improvement, infrastructure construction and land exploitation along a section of Xuyên Tâm Canal in Gò Vấp District is set to start work in August 2024.

The main investor of the project, Urban Infrastructure Construction Investment Projects Management Unit, signed an advanced cost contract as the districts of Gò Vấp and Bình Thạnh performed surveys and prepared a compensation plan for affected households.

The project includes a main canal route nearly 6.7 km long from Nhiêu Lộc - Thị Nghè Canal to Vàm Thuật River and three branches longer than 2.2 km.

Nguyễn Hoàng Anh Dũng, deputy director of the unit, said that the part of the canal passing through Gò Vấp District was expected to start construction in August 2024, because the workload would be less than the section passing through Bình Thạnh.

In Gò Vấp, the total area of ​​land recovered for the project is more than 19,500sq.m with about 84 households affected.

The locality has prepared resettlement apartments for relocated households at Khang Gia apartment blocks , Ward 14, Gò Vấp District. Construction of this canal section through Gò Vấp District is expected to be completed in May 2025.

The total length of Xuyên Tâm Canal is about 8.2km, of which the project's scope from Nhiêu Lộc-Thị Nghè Canal to Vàm Thuật River is 6.6km long.

Construction of the project requires the reclamation of about 159,000m of land, and the relocation of about 1,880 affected households along the canal.

The project has been delayed for more than 20 years and is also one of the city’s urgent projects of urban betterment and development in the period 2021-25.

For many years, Xuyên Tâm Canal has been polluted due to illegal discharge of untreated domestic waste and wastewater used by households living along both sides of the canal.

That has caused blockages of water flow that pollute the environment and cause flooding.

City authorities have made great efforts to increase public awareness about the need to stop littering into rivers and canals, and strictly manage illegal encroachment and littering. — VNS