The consolidation and enhancement of rural water supply projects in Sichuan has benefited 12.99 million people.

　　Cover News reporter Yang Jin Zhu

　　In April, the Ganzi Plateau is still immersed in the chill of early spring. In two months, with the blooming of the Gesang flower, this place will turn into a colorful painting.

　　This is also a place familiar to Xu Rui, a staff member of the Water Conservation Department of the Sichuan Provincial Water Resources Department. In June 2018, Xu Rui came to Moxue Village, Gengqing Town, Dege County, and became a village cadre assisting Tibet. For more than a year afterwards, he participated in and witnessed the local development and changes.

　　A relevant person in charge of the Sichuan Provincial Water Resources Department introduced that since 2016, the department has been providing targeted assistance to poverty alleviation in Dege County, Ganzi Prefecture, with a clear goal of fully implementing the "Five Water Conservancy Poverty Alleviation Actions". Through large-scale water conservancy construction, the infrastructure conditions in impoverished areas have significantly improved, achieving a transformation from non-existent to existent, and from existent to good.

　　Data shows that by the end of 2019, the rural water supply projects in the province benefited 12.99 million people, including 3.0931 million impoverished people, with the rural centralized water supply reaching 86.4% and the household tap water rate reaching 80.4%.

　　Visiting impoverished citizens

　　Village cadres in the mountains

　　Witnessing local development and changes

　　Dege County in Ganzi Prefecture is located in a mountainous canyon, where the local architecture is mainly in red and yellow colors. The Sequoia River flows through the city like a jade belt, eventually merging into the Jinsha River. Xu Rui's workplace is in Moxue Village, located in Gengqing Town, about 13 kilometers from the county seat, with an average altitude of 3600 meters.

　　After a brief adaptation to the climate and altitude, Xu Rui quickly entered work mode. During this period, he and his colleagues in the village developed the "Moxue Village Poverty Alleviation Plan for 2018-2019", covering party building, safe drin water, dangerous house renovation, skills training, environmental sanitation, and industrial development. In addition, they coordinated over 230,000 yuan in project funds for the village, excavated 6.8 kilometers of industrial access roads, and laid 1.9 kilometers of safe drin water pipelines, upgrading the party member activity center, village clinic, and village cultural room.

　　In their work, Xu Rui and his colleagues had to overcome the hardships of high-altitude hypoxia and freezing conditions, but whenever they visited the village and saw the citizens welcoming them from afar, drin hot butter tea, "we felt that all the work was worth it."

　　Through continuous assistance, the poverty incidence in Moxue Village has dropped from 30.6% to 0%, with no impoverished citizens falling back into poverty, and the average annual income per household in the village far exceeding the national standard. Seeing the thriving changes in the villagers' lives, Xu Rui felt genuinely joyful and became increasingly close to the local people. The villagers gave him a Tibetan name "Luo Bu Dun Zhu", symbolizing good fortune and smooth work. Xu Rui said he liked hearing the villagers call this name from afar.

　　Like Xu Rui, since 2016, the Sichuan Provincial Water Resources Department has sent 78 aid workers to Tibet, covering 41 impoverished villages in 16 of the 26 towns in Dege County.

　　Distributing winter clothing to impoverished students

　　Enhancing the intensity and precision of assistance

　　Adopting a "village cadre + dispatched unit" group assistance model

　　The Sichuan Provincial Water Resources Department is the unit for provincial-level targeted poverty alleviation in Dege County. In 2019, the department dispatched 50 targeted assistance cadres to Dege County. At the same time, it strengthened communication with supporting units, coordinating 34 dispatched assistance personnel from seven units including the Sichuan Ban and Insurance Regulatory Commission, Huaxia Bank Chengdu Branch, China Hydropower No. 7 Bureau, Sichuan Water Resources Vocational and Technical College, Chengdu People's Hospital, Sichuan Minzu University, and Sichuan University of Culture and Arts.

　　A relevant person in charge of the Sichuan Provincial Water Resources Department introduced that for the targeted assistance work in paired impoverished villages, the department adopted a "village cadre + dispatched unit" group assistance model, comprehensively enhancing the intensity and precision of assistance. In 2019, it secured 10.9777 million yuan in self-raised assistance funds and carried out 135 assistance projects, including 42 for industrial development, 25 for infrastructure construction, and 68 for livelihood and social undertas.

　　Since 2019, the Sichuan Provincial Water Resources Department has continued to increase support for water conservancy projects in Dege County and Gao County. Among them, it coordinated 211.12 million yuan in central and provincial water conservancy construction funds to support the consolidation and enhancement of rural safe drin water in Dege County, special projects in Tibetan areas, small and medium river governance, mountain flood disaster prevention, maintenance and repair of water conservancy projects, soil and water conservation, and river and lake management. It insists on ma the safety of drin water for impoverished populations the top priority of water conservancy poverty alleviation, investing 42.5 million yuan to vigorously promote the "safe drin water" campaign, solving the safe drin water problem for 5,120 impoverished households in remote areas.

　　Strengthening the encouragement of ambition and intelligence

　　Continuously enhancing the "blood-ma" capacity

　　2020 is the year to achieve the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and also the year to win the battle against poverty. Among them, how to enhance the "blood-ma" capacity of impoverished areas has attracted much attention.

　　A relevant person in charge of the Sichuan Provincial Water Resources Department introduced that currently, Dege County is ma full use of the established platforms to explore innovative, suitable, and effective ways to encourage ambition and intelligence, such as continuing to carry out the "Langda Village College Student Internship Station" work, establishing a long-term mechanism for Tibetan college students from impoverished villages to intern during holidays; fully utilizing the "Tianzhu Window" remote education platform to carry out online education youth volunteer service projects, etc.

　　The reporter learned that under the assistance and guidance of the Sichuan Provincial Water Resources Department and other units, Dege County is continuously accelerating the promotion of tourism, planting, breeding, and other projects. Currently, some projects have achieved preliminary results, such as the water conservancy tourism poverty alleviation projects like "Flower Fragrance Tibetan Village" in Xibu Village and "Langda Valley Wildflower Scenic Spot" have been completed and put into use. Efforts are being made to solve the water supply problem for industrial development, conducting in-depth research and development of the tea industry, building a "ten-thousand-acre tea industry park", and developing rural tourism and other industrial projects to help Gao County improve its poverty alleviation industrial system and layout.

　　A relevant person in charge of the Sichuan Provincial Water Resources Department introduced that through multiple measures to promote the implementation of various poverty alleviation measures in Dege County, the task of helping Dege County "exit 29 impoverished villages, 1,185 households, and 4,883 people" from poverty has been successfully completed.