A leader on the road to prosperity, guiding villagers to increase their incomes together
Our reporter Diao Yan
Since becoming Party branch secretary of Fuquan Village, Zhonghe Town, Zhalantun City in 1999, Liu Changhai has worked for 20 years like a single day, leading the villagers in striving to build a "civilized new village and beautiful countryside." Under the leadership of the village Party organization, all undertakings in Fuquan Village have developed rapidly, and the villagers' happiness index has risen markedly.
"Whether rural areas are rich or not depends on the branch; whether the branch is strong or not depends on the leader." Since becoming Party branch secretary of Fuquan Village, Liu Changhai has started with team building so that everyone thinks with one mind and works toward one goal. He handles matters fairly and justly and takes the lead in upholding democratic decision-making. The village established "three deliberation organizations": a Party member representative deliberation meeting, a villager representative deliberation meeting, and a villager financial management group. Major matters are decided with joint participation, making all village-level work more open and transparent, and public acceptance has risen markedly.
In order to speed up villagers' prosperity and income growth and promote village-level industrial development, in 2004 Liu Changhai took the lead in organizing 200 farming households to establish the Mengdong Kudi River Potato Processing Association, mainly producing handmade patted vermicelli. In 2007, "Kudi River Brand Handmade Pattted Vermicelli" was registered as a pollution-free agricultural product. In 2008, it passed national-level certification, obtained the green certificate for handmade patted vermicelli, and won the Outstanding Product Award at that year's Inner Mongolia Green Food Expo. In 2015, Fuquan Village invested another 2.7 million yuan to upgrade and renovate the handmade patted vermicelli facilities and equipment. At present, nearly 200 workshops in the village and 340 farming households hold shares in the village-run potato deep-processing enterprise. Cumulative output value has reached more than 40 million yuan, and per capita net income has increased from the original several hundred yuan to 22,060 yuan.
With a breakthrough in industrial development, Liu Changhai had another bold idea: "build a new village and beautify the environment." In 2013, Fuquan Village's new village was completed. Ancillary facilities such as the village clinic, cultural activity room, library reading room, convenience supermarket, kindergarten, and fitness square are all available. A connected mutual-aid elderly care happiness home was also built to solve living problems for disadvantaged groups in the village such as the elderly, weak, sick, and disabled. In 2014, Fuquan Village also launched the "Beautiful Countryside" construction project, and the village's appearance took on a completely new look.
Under Liu Changhai's leadership, Fuquan Village has undergone tremendous changes and was rated as an autonomous-region-level pilot village for new socialist countryside construction. Now, all the villagers are striding forward on the road of development.