Villagers in remote areas in Tibet will no longer have to cross rivers by zip-lines as the regional government is planning to replace the inclined cables with bridges.

"Zip-lines should be used for tourism and adventure only," Qiangba Puncog, chairman of the Tibet regional government, said?last Friday.

He ordered the finance, transport and other relevant departments to draw a detailed plan as soon as possible to replace zip-lines with bridges in the next two years.

There are 82 zip-lines in the mountainous areas of Tibet, according to Wang Jian, a poverty relief official in Tibet. Twelve of the zip-lines were made of cowhide and were more dangerous that those made of steel cable.

Propelled by gravity, users glide across a river by a zip-line. Some school children used them every day to go to school, while tourists used zip-lines for entertainment.

Qiangba Puncog said bridges replacing zip-lines need not to be big to accommodate cars. "We can build small bridges for people and livestock to walk on," he said, adding that priority was to replace zip-lines made with cowhide.

Last year, the government built 9,616 kilometers of roads to link up 848 isolated villages.

(Xinhua News Agency December 8, 2008)