All villages in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region are to have clean drinking water supplies by 2005 under an ambitious project to improve their lives of villagers.

Since 2000, Tibet Autonomous Region has been undertaking a project to provide sanitary drinking water to local villages.

The project is scheduled to be completed by 2005 and costs 480 million yuan (57.83 million US dollars), said an official from the regional government office in charge of the issue.

Over 3,000 drinking water distribution points would be built in rural areas, the official said.

In 2000, the regional government conducted an investigation to see how many people and livestock were drinking the same water.

A shortage of sanitary drinking water had been hindering the development of the rural economy in Tibet, said a local government official from the Qamdo Prefecture.

Since the peaceful liberation in 1950 of Tibet, the regional government has tried hard to supply clean drinking water to all Tibetans.

So far, 243,000 rural people and five million livestock in Tibet have been covered by the sanitary drinking water network.

(Xinhua News Agency April 1, 2003)