A new family planning reward policy is to be introduced in 23
provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions across the country
this year.
According to the new policy, rural couples with only one child
or two daughters will be eligible for a cash reward of no less than
600 yuan (US$72) each year when they are 60 years old. The reward
will last for the rest of their lives.
In east China's Anhui
Province, which began practicing the new policy recently,
approximately 50,000 rural seniors are eligible for the cash reward
this year, according to the Anhui Provincial Committee for Family
Planning.
The province also stipulates that those who have only one
daughter or whose only child died can get 240 yuan (US$29)
more.
The strategy of promoting care for girls and rewarding farmers
for following the national family planning policy aims to guide
farmers to maintain the low birth rate while addressing the high
sexual imbalance.
China's family planning policy, launched in the late 1970s to
check China's rapid population growth, has reduced the country's
population by an estimated 300 million. But the policy has also
negatively impacted some rural families lack of male laborers.
Last year, more than 310,000 farmers in 10 cities of the five
provinces where the pilot project was launched received around 200
million yuan (US$24 million) in cash rewards for having only one
child or two daughters.
At present, China's central budget covers some 80 percent of the
reward allowances paid in China's less developed western regions,
while in the better-developed eastern coastal regions all the
reward money is paid from the local budgets.
Concerned localities have adopted measures to guarantee the
strict implementation of the new policy.
Anhui Province stipulates that people who are found to
misappropriate reward allowances, cover up problems, practice fraud
and provide false evidence will be harshly punished or even face
lawsuits.
(Xinhua News Agency October 24, 2005)