A proposed new urban residential area in Thủ Thiêm in HCM City’s District 2. VNA/VNS Photo Ngọc Hiệp

HCM CITY — HCM City plans to tighten management of public lands and apply information technology to increase the city’s revenues, a city official said yesterday at a meeting.

Võ Văn Hoan, vice chairman of the city’s People’s Committee, said that four groups of solutions, including the law, administration, planning and finance, would be applied.

The city will also develop a long-term plan for land use in the health, education and transport sectors, as well as strengthen inspections of land management.

In addition, the city will strictly revoke any delayed projects and carefully calculate public land revenues.

It will also work with agencies to remove obstacles faced by delayed investment projects that are subject to overlapping regulations.

To ensure transparency, IT will be used in land management, according to Hoan.

Nguyễn Toàn Thắng, director of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment, said there were too many agencies managing public lands and the city should have only one agency responsible for management and commercialisation of public lands.

“This will prevent the situation of huge public buildings and lands being wasted and causing a great loss to the city, which has occurred for a long time,” he said.

Many agencies occupy large land plots and pay nothing or a nominal fee, and in most cases they leave the land unused or sublet it at much higher rates than they pay.

“Many businesses place their own interest above the common interest. Despite their ineffective use of land, they insist on keeping it at their disposal,” Thắng said.

Encroachment of public land and illegal sale of public lands to private individuals are rife, even as many build-transfer (BT) projects remain stalled due to delays in handovers of land to contractors as payment for their work, according to Thắng.

The Government recently instructed all cities and provinces to improve the management of land use.

Public agencies that are found wasting land will lose the land, which will be handed over to the city’s Land Fund Development Centre.

The city will work with central agencies to review their land holdings and will take charge in cases of poor management, according to Thắng. — VNS