Some 1.8 million rural residents have gained access to safe
drinking water over the past two years in
Gansu Province, but more than 10 million
others still subsist on dirty water or face shortages, statistics
show.
Starting 2006, the Gansu provincial government earmarked 850
million yuan (US$116 million) for programs to provide tap water for
people living in rural areas who had been collecting rain for
household use, Yao Jinzhong, of the Gansu provincial department of
water resources, said.
"We helped each rural household build a small water reservoir to
collect rain, but that water usually turned bad after a while," Yao
said.
"Besides, rain is not a reliable source of water during
droughts."
The provincial government also solved water shortages in
extremely dry areas such as Huanxian, Huining and Jingyuan counties
last year, benefiting 200,000 residents.
"Water was too precious in the past. We couldn't afford to take
a bath all year round, and we had to wait for rain in order to do
washing," Wang Xiaoxia, a resident of Daping village, Lintao
county, said.
"Now that we've got running water, we can wash whenever we
want," she said.
But providing safe drinking water to a further 10.7 million
rural residents, nearly 60 percent of the population in remote
parts of the arid province, remains a challenge.
Of them, half are reduced to drinking unclean water that does
not meet national safety standards, while the rest suffer from
shortages or difficulties in securing water supplies.
Separately, the neighboring Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, which also has
a dry climate and frequent water shortages, is to invest 200
million yuan in a program to provide clean and safe drinking water
for 300,000 rural residents this year.
By the end of 2015, the region will solve drinking water
problems for 1.36 million rural people and gradually provide tap
water to each village, authorities have said.
(Xinhua News Agency January 11, 2008)
