Bama takes steps to avoid poverty returning during virus outbreak

Bama Yao autonomous county in Hechi recently has been taking steps to increase the incomes of impoverished people and avoid people returning to poverty while remaining devoted to preventing and controlling the novel coronavirus pneumonia.

Promoting land transfer is one of the county's efforts to help impoverished people increase their incomes and be lifted out of poverty.

To date, more than 20,000 mu (1,333.33 hectares) of idle barren mountains and land have been transferred to local leading enterprises and farmers with large-scale production to develop characteristic poverty alleviation industries.

The 324 impoverished households in the county can receive a rent ranging from 3,000 yuan ($431.22) to 20,000 yuan from land transfer.

"I transferred more than 5 mu of land, and got over 4,000 yuan," said Huang Daxing, a registered impoverished person in Longhong village of the county. "I was also hired to work on my own land every day, with a daily income of 150 yuan."

According to Zhou Yu, director of the county's human resources and social security bureau, Bama planned to increase its funding by more than 20 million yuan to set up about 2,000 new public welfare posts for impoverished people in 2020.

"We will make it possible for the impoverished households in the county's 33 villages stricken by deep poverty and the 18 extremely impoverished villages to increase their incomes by finding jobs near their home," said Zhou.

In addition, Bama has been doing its best to promote work resumption. To date, there were 12 enterprises above designated size in the county that have resumed their work, solving the employment of over 300 impoverished people, whose daily income exceed 150 yuan.

In addition, the county has arranged free chartered buses to send migrant workers back to work, and offers travel allowance for migrant workers who purchase tickets by themselves.

The travel allowance for registered impoverished migrant workers shall not exceed 800 yuan in accordance to their tickets bought with their real names, while a maximum of 600 yuan is available for other people.

By March 10, Bama had provided a total of 3.01 million yuan in travel allowance for migrant workers in the county, and sent over 5,000 people back to work through chartered buses.