The Lyuliang Mountains in August are lush with vegetation. In Nanhutang Village, Jishan Town, Fangshan County, Lyuliang City, Shanxi Province, a once-silent plot of land is now brimming with new vitality. This area recently completed a comprehensive land improvement project with a total investment of 9.2322 million yuan, covering a construction scale of 44.0433 hectares and adding 26.6556 hectares of new farmland. However, just a few months ago, this project, which is crucial for local development, was stalled at the "last mile" of land reporting and filing due to a "system logic" barrier.

The new farmland could not be entered into the system. In November 2022, the Fangshan County Natural Resources Bureau approved the Nanhutang Village comprehensive land improvement project. The project progressed smoothly, and the 26.6556 hectares of newly added farmland held the local community's hopes for a bountiful harvest. The turning point came at the end of January 2026. The national Land Occupation and Compensation Balance System (5.0) was shut down, and Shanxi Province's land occupation and compensation balance management system was officially launched. When the Fangshan County Natural Resources Bureau attempted to report the project, it was blocked because the project fell within the protection zone of the Hengquan Reservoir drinking water source in Lyuliang City. The system's logic pre-check failed, preventing the project from being reported and filed. The 26 hectares of new farmland thus remained in limbo outside the system. More concerning was that the Hengquan Reservoir's drinking water source quasi-protection zone covers an area of 743.319 square kilometers, accounting for 51.82% of Fangshan County's total land area, and spans three towns upstream of the reservoir. This meant that without resolving this policy bottleneck, all subsequent farmland replenishment projects in Fangshan County would face the same predicament.

Targeted on-site assistance resolved the issue. Since March 2026, the Shanxi Provincial Department of Natural Resources, in collaboration with the Provincial Geological Prospecting Bureau and the Provincial Forestry and Grassland Bureau, has focused on addressing urgent grassroots needs by launching a working mechanism to improve the efficiency of natural resource services. The leadership teams of these departments formed 11 assistance working groups, adopting a "one city, one group" and "one-on-one" model to conduct precise, on-the-ground, paired assistance. After receiving Fangshan County's request, the Lyuliang assistance working group immediately went to the site. "Where is the problem? What is the policy basis? How can we overcome the technical difficulties?" The group did not simply say "no." Instead, they held multiple meetings to carefully review national and provincial policy requirements for reporting and filing land improvement projects. The assistance group took the project's boundary lines and strictly compared them with the results of the "Shanxi Provincial People's Government's Approval for the Delineation of the Hengquan Reservoir Drinking Water Source Protection Zone." They ultimately confirmed that the project area was not within the primary or secondary protection zones, only falling within the quasi-protection zone. Having identified the root cause, the assistance group proactively communicated with the Shanxi Provincial Department of Natural Resources and the Shanxi Provincial Department of Ecology and Environment. Based on national and provincial policies regarding land occupation and compensation balance, the two departments reached an agreement: the Hengquan Reservoir drinking water source quasi-protection zone would be removed from the restricted areas within Shanxi Province's land occupation and compensation balance management system. With the blockage cleared, the project was successfully reported and filed.

A single move unlocked the whole situation. This was not just about the filing of one project. With the Hengquan Reservoir's drinking water source quasi-protection zone removed from the system, the path for Fangshan County's subsequent farmland replenishment projects (expected to add approximately 760 mu of new farmland) was also opened. This ensured solid farmland index guarantees for the implementation of major projects across the county. In fact, the breakthrough in Nanhutang Village is just one example of the targeted assistance provided by the Shanxi Provincial Department of Natural Resources. During the several-month-long on-site assistance period, the Lyuliang assistance working group visited 13 counties (cities, districts) and 11 key projects for precise support. Of the 50 assistance items, 36 have been resolved, and 5 have achieved initial results. From "demand collection" to "team leader assessment," from "provincial-level coordination" to "county and city implementation," followed by "tracking and supervision" and "completion and closure," a full-chain, closed-loop working system ensures that every demand receives a response and every challenge has a solution. "By moving the service front forward and shifting focus downward, we effectively solve problems at the grassroots level and ensure the satisfaction of the people," a relevant official from the Shanxi Provincial Department of Natural Resources stated. From a single project filing deep in the Lyuliang Mountains to breaking a county's development bottleneck, this "on-site diagnosis, targeted problem-solving" assistance campaign is transforming policy benefits into tangible results for high-quality local development.