Free legal aid for disadvantaged groups in 213 poverty-stricken central and western counties, currently without access to lawyers, will be provided this year in an effort to promote judicial fairness, a senior justice official said.

Sun Jianying, head of the legal aid department under the Ministry of Justice, said the ministry will send at least 213 lawyers and 150 college students as volunteers to selected counties in a government-sponsored program.

Sun Jianying, head of the legal aid department under the Ministry of Justice

The government has earmarked 12 million yuan ($1.8 million) in a special fund to guarantee that the program runs smoothly, Sun said.

Ensuring each of the 213 counties has a lawyer will "benefit disadvantaged litigants, including the disabled, the elderly, minors and migrant workers," Sun told China Daily.

The selected counties are located mainly in Guizhou, Yunnan and Qinghai provinces as well as autonomous regions such as Ningxia, Tibet and Xinjiang, she added.

The move is in line with the "One Plus One" Legal Aid Volunteer Project launched in 2009, which aims to send at least a lawyer and volunteer to each of the poor counties in 13 provinces and autonomous regions in central and western parts of China.

A total of 130 lawyers and 300 college students have so far participated in the project.

These volunteers handled a total of 3,182 legal aid cases in 2010, a year-on-year increase of 52 percent.

"China's vast western areas are facing a dire shortage of legal resources and there are 213 poverty-stricken counties with no lawyer providing any legal service," Sun said. "These counties are urgently in need of professional legal services."