The Chinese government has put lead battery factories as the top priority in its campaign to rectify the country's heavy metal pollution.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection, together with eight other government organs, will target specific sectors and regions based on inspections last year and make sure rectifying measures would be implemented to root out environmental hazards, it was announced at a joint tele-conference on Monday.

Enterprises that fail to meet environmental protection requirements will have their production halted and those that have caused serious contaminations will be prosecuted.

Provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities are required to publish the list of lead battery-related enterprises within their jurisdiction by the end of July to receive public supervision.

The conference decided that transportation of hazardous wastes should be closely monitored, especially in large-scale mining and refining enterprises.

In a related development, police in East China's Zhejiang Province have detained a storage battery plant manager, following incidents in which untreated industrial emissions poisoned 168 villagers.

Ying Jianguo, general manager of Taizhou Suqi Storage Battery Co. Ltd., was taken into custody on March 25 and is facing environmental pollution charges, the Xinhua news agency reported.

A toxic spill surfaced in early March as residents of Shangtao village were found to have high levels of lead in their blood. The village is located close to the battery plant. By March 26, at least 168 residents, including 53 children, were found to have elevated levels of lead.

Nearly 600 villagers had their blood checked following lead poisoning incidents.

Exposure to high levels of lead can damage the digestive, nervous, and reproductive systems, health experts say.

There have not been any life-threatening cases of lead poisoning, but three of the victims have required further treatment to reduce levels of lead in their blood.

The lead poisoning incidents have been directly linked to the discharge of untreated waste from the battery plant, the report said.

The plant has been shut down and government workers are working to contain the toxic spill.

Meanwhile, the environmental protection department of Northeast China's Jilin Province is preparing to conduct a series of inspections over pollution treatment facilities in 430 highly polluting industrial plants built on rivers including Liaohe River, the Songhua River and their tributaries.

The massive inspection is meant to prevent future spills, especially poisoning of heavy metals, authorities said.