Cai Qihua, director of the Yangtze River Water Conservancy Committee, beat the drum for the project yesterday on the sidelines of the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

Holding up a map detailing the routes of the water-transfer project, the smiling Cai said its general blueprint was recently approved by the State Council, China's cabinet.

"In 2008, Beijing people will be able to drink water from the Yangtze," Cai said.

"And as a Party member, I hope to contribute to the project with my (water engineering) expertise and experience," she added.

Cai earned the nickname Queen of the Yangtze with her solid oversight of dam construction along the Yangtze River in the wake of the catastrophic deluge in 1998.

Regarding the water-transfer project, Cai added that three construction projects have been approved by the State Council and will start soon.

Pipeline will be laid at the middle-route project's starting point of Danjiangkou in Central China's Hubei Province and at its ending point in Beijing.

When the pipeline is put into use, 1.2 billion cubic meters of fresh water will be channeled annually to the city.

With an estimated cost of 100 billion yuan (US$12 billion), the south-to-north water diversion project will have an eastern water diversion route, a middle route and a western route.

The project will divert water from the Yangtze River to the North China Plain.

Once the project is completed in five to 10 years, some 38 billion to 48 billion cubic meters of water will be transferred yearly to water-deficient northern China.

The message is music to the ears of the residents of drought-prone northern China, which possesses less than one-eighth of the total water reserves of the nation.

(China Daily November 12, 2002)