The plan states that 24 household waste processing plants will be built, 12 of which will be located in the capital city. The rest will be spread between Luong Son Town and the cities of Phu Ly, Ninh Binh and Nam Dinh.

The project plan states that around VND108 trillion (US$5 billion) will be spent on the construction of nine rain and waste water drainage systems and waste processing stations in the low section of the river.

The river basin covers a 7,665 square kilometre area across the northern provinces of Ha Nam, Ninh Binh, Hoa Binh, Nam Dinh and Ha Noi.

Nine drainage systems will be built in the basin, and reservoirs with self-draining capacity will be developed in order to reduce the investment expense and improve the ecological environment.

Waste water released from urban areas will be gathered and treated in line with environmental standards before being discharged into the river.

Industrial zones will have their own systems to process waste water.

The plan forms one part of the Nhue-Day River Environment Protection before 2020 project, which was approved by the Prime Minister in 2008.

Previously, several initiatives were launched to combat pollution in the river basin, but few of them worked effectively according to Dinh Van Hoa, director of Hoa Binh Province's Natural Resource and Environment Department.

He blamed the lack of a suitable labour force and an absence of co-ordination among the provinces for the failure of these projects.

"I really hope that the new plan can completely eliminates the pollution in the river basin, something which has not been achieved in previous attempts," Hoa said.

The pollution has been a major environmental issue for years. Analysis conducted by the Centre for Environmental Monitoring under Ha Nam Province's Department of Natural Resource and Environment last week revealed that the river water is polluted to extremely alarming levels.

The ammonium concentration is 151 times higher than the regulated limit, while the concentration of dissolved oxygen in the water is five times smaller than the standard.