In most of the country's urban areas, the constant availability of clean water is virtually taken for granted, even if its purity is sometimes questioned. In the rural areas it is the reverse; it is estimated that some 300 million rural people do not have access to safe drinking water.

The central government has made a lofty pledge to make safe drinking water accessible for these people over the next 10 years.

Still, it is a tough job.

In announcing this grand goal, the Ministry of Water Resources made no mention of the plan's details, particularly how it would be implemented.

The country's 11th Five-Year Plan, approved last March for 2006-10, called for the provision of safe and portable water to 100 million rural residents. The target number was raised to 160 million after a State Council conference on August 30 on the safety of drinking water in rural areas.

On Monday, the government nearly doubled this to 300 million, presenting its determination to crack the hard nut for good.

How the budget, which remains to be firmly settled, will go to the safe water supply projects should be made clear so that the well-intentioned effort will really make a difference to these rural residents.

Ecological damage has accompanied the country's industrial boom, with many factories ignoring pollution hazards and dumping toxic industrial waste into rivers and lakes.

The countryside has fallen behind cities in the availability of safe drinking water, particularly in central and western rural areas with severe natural conditions and underdeveloped economies.

They are afflicted with water shortages and poor water sources. Some springs and rivers have dried up and groundwater levels have dropped in certain places.

In addition, technical standards for drinking water works in rural areas are low and water treatment facilities are nonexistent, making it impossible to guarantee the amount and safety of drinking water. Most previously built drinking water works are wells, cisterns or pools that will dry up if hit by drought for a few years in a row. Many villagers draw water directly from wells, rivers, lakes, reservoirs or ponds. Although the water supply for those sources can be guaranteed in normal years, the water quality is often substandard.

Also, the substandard discharge of industrial or residential waste water and increased use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers have put some drinking water sources particularly surface water and shallow-seam ground water in danger. The polluted water sources in turn cause diseases.

With more than 50 diseases in China transmitted through unsafe drinking water, the task of reducing diseases transmitted by unsafe drinking water in rural areas has posed a grave challenge to the rural drinking water projects. The most effective way to reduce diseases and improve public health in rural areas is to provide safe drinking water for all.

The wish list the Ministry of Water Resources has delivered for rural residents without access to safe drinking water is a proper commitment.

But it is one thing to put a target on a wish list. Achieving it is a challenge of a different order of magnitude.

(China Daily September 7, 2006)