By staff reporter ZHANG XIAO
JUST five years ago, residents of Bading Village of Chagjug Town, Sakya County of Shigatse City in Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) had neither running water nor electricity. Owing to poor transport and telecommunications they also lived in almost total social isolation. However, great changes have occurred in that short space of time. Solar street lighting, a local area network (LAN), and construction of a cement road have given the village a brand new look. All these changes are thanks to the efforts of a working team sent by the TAR Department of Science and Technology.
Tailor-made Plans to Benefit Local Residents
Bading Village is one of the three sites in Chagjug Town to which the TAR Science and Technology Department sent a team to help the local poverty alleviation effort. Compared with the two other villages, Bading is more remote and, with no electricity, suffered even worse conditions.
Extremely laggard infrastructure was the biggest challenge facing the team of cadres stationed in the village. Locals eked out a living through farming and herding, and with no running water, electricity, roads or telecommunications, life was primitive. Upon arrival in Bading, the team immediately set about visiting local households to determine their needs. They could then make targeted plans to safeguard local stability, promote economic development, and solve various problems. They decided to focus their efforts on improving local infrastructure, helping locals increase their incomes, and transforming the economic development mode. The team accordingly sketched out a three-year and five-year plan for the village.
With the support of local governments at both the county and township level, the working team stationed in Bading resorted to all available channels to supply the village with electricity and enable locals' communications with the each other and the outside world. They built a road, an irrigation reservoir, and a potable water supply system. They also launched training schemes for local government officers to enable them to better serve local people, and helped to establish rural cooperatives.
The Tibet Department of Science and Technology endorsed the establishment of four vegetable greenhouses and a 3.3-plus hectare planting area for alfalfa. It has also set up an agricultural processing plant, a chicken farm with egg incubators, a potable water supply and a well, and a village clinic, according to Chimed Tsering, leader of the village-stationed cadre team and secretary of the Bading Village Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC). All the newly established facilities have basically met the needs of local people and substantially improved their living environment and conditions.
"In the past, local people ate few vegetables other than potatoes and radishes. Since the construction of greenhouses, they have the choice of various leafy green vegetables. The agricultural processing factory produces flour, oil, and Tsampa, the Tibetan staple food, so villagers don't need to go elsewhere to buy those foodstuffs at high prices," Chimed Tsering said.
Moreover, the village-stationed cadres have gone to great lengths to promote science and technology. They selected two villagers for training in scientific knowledge and technologies. They, in turn, instruct other villagers each year in crop growing and livestock farming. Each local technician is equipped with a mobile data terminal that gives access to pictures, texts and Tibetan language videos. This makes it much easier for technicians to promote relevant agricultural technologies among local farmers. To further enhance informatization, a wireless LAN covering the whole village has been established.
"The team has wrought huge changes on Bading Village," secretary of the CPC Chagjug Town Committee Jiang Minglei said. "Cadres have made every effort to advance local economic development and improve local infrastructure. Funds have been invested and yielded good results," Jiang added.
The standard of education in Bading Village has in the past been consistently low. Social progress and the development of China's education system, however, have highlighted the importance of schooling. Badaling village has a total of 120 students, seven of whom are college undergraduates. To encourage more poor students to stay in education, village-stationed cadres have worked with the Tibet Institute of Scientific and Technological Information to solicit donations and set up scholarships for students from impoverished families.
Cadres have contacted various charity organizations and people willing to help, and received from them donations of brand new winter clothes worth around RMB 170,000, as well as 1,800 items of used clothing and various stationery items. The team also allocates RMB 10,000 every year to buying quilts and warm clothes for the poor, demobilized soldiers, and senior citizens.