One year after disgruntled residents in south China's Wukan village staged a mass rally, progress has been evident in the village's self-governance.

Wukan was thrown under an international spotlight last year when its residents staged three waves of large-scale rallies in four months to protest against village officials' alleged illegal land grabs, corruption and violations of financing and election rules.

Order was restored after a senior provincial official held talks with villagers in December, and re-elections were held earlier this year, during which Lin Zulian was appointed as the new Communist Party of China (CPC) chief of the village of 13,000 residents in Guangdong Province.

Addressing a gathering of about 200 villagers on Friday morning, Lin said more than 3,800 mu of land, which was illegally transferred or allocated under the tenure of his predecessor had been returned to Wukan.

In the meantime, six livelihood projects with a combined investment of 60 million yuan (9.5 million U.S. dollars) are "progressing smoothly", Lin said. The projects are supported by provincial and municipal governments.

Lin however confessed that the newly elected committee, with little work experience, had made mistakes over the past few months, and he would accept criticism and suggestions from the villagers to jointly solve the land disputes and achieve economic development.

He said a group of five people had been chosen from 109 villager representatives to form a supervising committee, which would keep a close eye on the development guidelines, policies as well as other mechanisms of the village.

"The installation of all these organizations is to ensure the openness, fairness and impartiality of the village work," Lin said. "The key to supervision lies is in two aspects: one is people, and the other is money."