More than 70 percent of China's rivers and lakes are polluted to various degrees, compounding shortages and threatening the safety of drinking water, Wang Shucheng, minister of water resources said in Beijing on Wednesday.

"Currently, 300 million people are drinking unsafe water, of whom 190 million are drinking water with harmful substances above set standards," Wang said at a conference for directors of water resources bureaus.

Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, the government has drilled wells and purified the water supply for 273 million rural people, sources with the conference said, adding that they have allocated more than 18 billion yuan (US$2.17 billion) for 800,000 rural drinking water projects since 2000.

However, Zhai Haohui, vice-minister of water resources, said the safety of drinking water in many rural areas is still far from being guaranteed. "More than 63 million people in north, northwest, northeast and east China plains are drinking water with fluorine above set standards," he said.

In addition, 60 million people in 110 counties of Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Anhui, Jiangsu, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces are threatened by schistosomiasis (also known as snail fever or bilharzia), Zhai said.

Safeguarding drinking water safety is the top priority of the government's efforts to protect water resources, Wang said.

The government will take measures to ensure drinking water safety for all rural residents by 2020, he said.
 
(Xinhua News Agency December 23, 2004)