Prime Minister Hun Sen announced that a 10-year validity IDPoor card would be issued to the people who had agreed to relocate from the Angkor Archaeological Park to the Run Ta Ek eco-village in Siem Reap province’s Banteay Srei district, while also pushing for the rapid development of the area as soon as possible to benefit the new Run Ta Ek villagers.

The announcement came on October 1 as he met with an additional 2,000 households who had agreed to move their homes from the the park.

“I have a solution that comes as a package policy. All of you who are willing to move from the old area to Run Ta Ek or the other areas outside of the Angkor Park – such as Peak Sneng and other places – will be issued ‘Type I’ IDPoor cards,” he said.

He added that the people who were willing to move from the Angkor area who already had Type II IDPoor cards would be changed over to Type I.

Holders of Type I IDPoor cards are eligible for increased benefits over Type II card holders, with the actual amount of money received determined by the number of household members.

He continued that for the first phase of assistance, each household will receive a big box of Cambodian noodles, a box of canned fish, 50kg of milled rice, 30 zinc tiles, one tent, a mosquito net, blanket, krama and 1,400,000 riel ($350).

He further stated that in addition to the people moving from Angkor Park to Run Ta Ek, the care package of food and household items had also been extended to those willing to move from places like the pavements and the banks of the Siem Reap River in Siem Reap town.

“We have already distributed these same items to 594 households moving from the Siem Reap town riverside and to 1,117 households in the Run Ta Ek area,” he said.

Minister of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction Chea Sophara said that from August 18 to September 30, the Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation and the Ministry of Planning had identified and issued social security cards to 280 households in the Run Ta Ek area, and that 108 households had already had their social security cards and are receiving assistance from the government every month.

He added that the orientation team had completed the work of measuring plots and recorded information regarding occupation of plots in 114 villages in 24 communes and five town and districts. The team has now measured a total of 97,855 plots covering 29,174ha.

“There are 35 pagodas in that area, 14 of which are ancient, while 21 of them were built after the January 7, 1979 liberation [from the Khmer Rouge],” he stated.

He added that the team had gotten people to voluntarily demolish 429 market stalls in the Angkor Park and then replanted that area with trees and coordinated the work of drawing lots for 3,970 households who are moving to Run Ta Ek.

As for development of the Run Ta Ek eco-village, the team has prepared 431 plots covering 566ha and also planted boundary posts marking 1,427 plots, while building a model house on one plot for villagers to copy if they wished, and they have finished constructing more than 19km out of the 140km planned roads.

He added that in Run Ta Ek, the construction two school buildings with 24 rooms and a four-room office is 13.3 per cent complete and the construction of a medical clinic building for general purposes, a maternity ward and an accommodation building for medics is 11.6 per cent complete. The construction of the Run Ta Ek market is now five per cent complete.

As for the additional 541ha in Peak Sneng commune in Angkor Thom district, prominent tycoon Seang Nam and his team have drafted a master plan with 4,765 housing plots covering 285ha, with the remaining land allocated for an administrative area, a school, a health centre, a market and a green area.