The Vietnam Electricity Group (EVN) has just asked the National Power Transmission Corporation (EVNNPT) to stop work on a monument project which was intended to commemorate 250 workers who died while constructing the North-South 500kV transmission line.
Deputy general director of EVN, Dinh Quang Tri told Vnexpress Newspaper that the project was not their idea and they would not approve it.
"We've just heard about the project from the local media but we'll turn it down if EVNNPT send their plan to us," Tri said.
According to EVNNPT's general director, Vu Ngoc Minh, the project was just an idea based on proposals from many former workers who had joined in the construction of the transmission line.
"We've not sent our plan for the EVN yet, but were just discussing it," Minh said. "But now we've got the instructions from EVN and won’t go any further with the project."
Minh also said that he wanted to thank the media and the public for their attention and comments on their proposal.
EVNNPT has recently had a meeting with authorities in Pleiku City in the central highlands province of Gia Lai on construction of the project.
According to the plan, the nine-metre monument would also have included exhibition rooms, meeting rooms and other functional areas.
The project has faced with lots of opposition from the public who said that the money should be spent on bringing electricity to more remote areas instead of that monument.
"We'll never forget the workers who contributed their lives to bring light for us," a reader commented on an article by Dan Tri. "But I'm sure they will also be happy when seeing that the money used for the monument can be switched to more practical purposes, such as building schools or bringing light to more areas."
The North-South 500kV transmission line was a milestone in Vietnam’s electricity sector which helps provide enough electricity for the southern region.
The line’s Circuit 1, built in two years from April 1992 to May 1994, stretches nearly 1,500 km through 14 provinces from the northern province of Hoa Binh to Ho Chi Minh City."
According to EVNNPT's deputy general director, Tran Quoc Lam, some 12,000 experts, engineers and workers participated in the construction, management and operation of the project and 250 of them died in their work.
