As Premier Wen Jiabao promised "clean water for the people,"
receiving thunderous applause from National People's Congress (NPC)
deputies, one-third of China's rural population remained without
access to safe drinking water, according to the Ministry of Water
Resources.
On Saturday, Wen said in his work report that the government
will concentrate on providing clean water for everyone.
To help address the problem, 2 billion yuan (US$242 million) has
been earmarked this year, 200 million yuan (US$24 million) more
than last year, an official at the Ministry of Water Resources
said.
The fund will be used to seek out quality water sources and
enforce water purification, said Zhao Leshi, a division chief of
the ministry's rural water resource department.
In rural areas, the problems of contamination, seasonal
shortages, inconvenience in fetching water and deficient water
supplies all need to be solved.
"The foremost threat nowadays lies in bad water quality," said
Zhao.
Rural drinking water is being polluted with industrial and
agricultural pollutants, such as arsenic and fluorine, at levels
that exceed national standards.
Legislators and international advisers are deeply concerned, and
have suggested ideas for sustaining the development of limited
water resources at the ongoing session of the NPC.
NPC deputies Sun Xiaoshan and Fu Qionghua from east China's Jiangxi
Province both suggested that a rural drinking water fund be
established by collecting small additional fees for urban water
consumption.
If each metric ton of water cost 0.2 yuan (2.4 US cents) more in
the province's cities, each person would pay only an estimated 1.8
yuan (22 US cents) more a month at most, Fu said in her
proposal.
Given the growth rate of Jiangxi's gross domestic product, the
small fees levied on water both for civic and industrial use would
be translated into a fund of 1.8 billion yuan (US$218 million)
between 2005 and 2020, said Fu, also an engineer at the local water
science academy.
"It is international practice for central government to finance
the bulk of the input to rural water resources. But China's
subsidies in the agriculture industry are far less than they should
be," she said.
"The fund will be a flexible supplement, whilst not burdening
urban people too much."
Christoph Peisert, a German water conservation expert who has
worked in China for 16 years, agreed with Fu's proposal, but said
it must be shown that the fund is used exclusively for water
protection activities.
"Basically, China's water problem is a problem of water
management," said Peisert, who is engaged in a Sino-German
watershed management project in Beijing.
He said the success of water resource management projects should
not be judged by the size of financial investment alone, but on the
basis of their ability to sustain economically sound systems of
water protection.
He added that in future some carefully selected and well-trained
farmers should be given support to become foresters, instead of
making their money from low-wage water polluting activities or
part-time construction work.
NPC deputy Yuan Hanmin from Gansu
Province called for the creation of a water-saving society.
"The water supply system should be changed. Extra charges should
be placed on additional water use," said Yuan.
He said that water supply facilities must be upgraded soon in
rural places to improve efficiency.
Currently only 40 percent of the water from reservoirs arrives
at its destination.
Unsafe drinking water is also becoming a threat to cities, where
a huge sum is spent annually to purify polluted water.
In 2003, the country disposed of 64 billion tons of sewage. Only
28 percent of 46 key cities surveyed that year had access to
good-quality drinking water.
In Jiaxing, a city in Zhejiang
Province intersected by waterways, 70 percent of the water in
its rivers was found to be of 'low quality,' according to its mayor
Chen Derong.
Downstream of Suzhou and Hangzhou -- two big cities with fast
economic development -- Jiaxing has suffered from extensive water
pollution in the last two decades.
(China Daily March 11, 2005)
