Some 190,000 local residents in central China will be resettled this year to make way for the country's south-north water diversion project, a senior official said on Friday.

E Jingping, the head of the South-North Water Diversion Office under the State Council, told a working conference for the project that the office would see to the completion of the relocation in an open, just, timely and transparent manner.

The relocation involves 190,000 people living in areas around the Danjiangkou Reservoir in central China's Hubei and Henan provinces. Danjiangkou Reservoir is the source of the middle route of the south-north water diversion project.

To date, 149,000 people living in proximity to the reservoir have been resettled, E said.

The relocated residents, whose homes will be submerged after the project is completed, have settled in new communities in other parts of Hubei and Henan provinces.

The massive south-north water diversion project is designed to take water from China's largest river, the Yangtze, to feed the drought-prone areas in the north, such as China's capital Beijing. Water will flow northward via three routes - an eastern route, a middle route, and a western route.

The middle route, which will be completed in 2014, involves the relocation of 345,000 people living in proximity to the Danjiangkou Reservoir, which is the source of the middle route, in central China's Hubei and Henan provinces.