Study On Poverty Problem Of Reservoir Resettlement

Since the founding of P.R. China, a large number of water conservancy and hydropower projects have been implemented in our country, which brings huge economic and social benefits in flood control, water storage, power generation, irrigation, and environmental protection etc., but also results in tens of millions of immigrants leaving their hometowns. Positively responding to the call of "Relocation for the Development of Country", a large number of immigrants have made great sacrifices to the economic and social development of the whole country to support the national essential projects. Affecting by the weak economic conditions at different historical times, low resettlement level, insufficient attention and inadequate support of local governments to the immigration issue, a considerable part of the reservoir immigrants, especially before the 1980s,are still suffering from long-term poverty problems, since the poor natural resources in the places of resettlement, difficulty in acculturation, limited production conditions life skills, few support in education and technology, which generates lots of social unrest factors, and will have a negative impact on the stability of the state and the subsequent relocation work.Recently, more and more attention has been paid to reservoir resettlement by our country. The CPC Central Committee, State Council and local government together have introduced a large number of aid policies, made more practical measurements, invested a lot of project funding, and made great efforts to solve the poverty problems of reservoir resettlement, which have greatly alleviated the poverty problems of immigrants. However, poverty has not been thoroughly resolved. For some reservoir immigrants, it is still a considerable issue, which is also one of the key factors related to whether our nation could achieve a comprehensive well-off society on time. Thus it still needs us to pay more attention to this issue.In this paper, the poverty problem of the largest immigrant population concentrated resettlement in China, Chaihu Town, Zhongxiang City, was investigated via field interviews and discussion, focusing on the production and living conditions, natural resources, education and medical conditions, mental and cultural conditions etc.. Combining with a review of literature data and the latest theoretical achievements at home and abroad about poverty alleviation, economic and social development, and other aspects of public governance theory, the current status of poverty problem of reservoir resettlement was analyzed in detail and objectively. Besides, both the real reasons causing the poverty in reservoir resettlement and a brief discussion about the possible economic and social problems resulted from the poverty were also proposed. In addition, several strategies and suggestions to effectively address the poverty problems of reservoir resettlement have been given in this paper, from the viewpoints of scientific relocation plan, accelerating the development of the resettlement areas, strengthening education and training of migrants, carrying out resettlement according to local conditions, increasing the minimum guarantee in immigration policy to those particularly difficult resettlement family. Overall, this paper was committed to provide practical opinions and suggestions for party committees and governments at all levels to promote poverty alleviation and development, to make contributions in solving the long-term poverty of reservoir resettlement.