Up to 330,000 people are about to move aside for the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, which will take water from the Yangtze River in the south to China's parched north.

Displaced people will now move on with a far more generous compensation package than many had expected.

Zhang Jiyao, director of the office in charge of the project under the State Council, confirmed the planned exodus this week and said construction will start soon.

The project will be the largest of its kind in China.

The first group of people to move out of the way will be given farmland and a house, Zhang said.

Some 156,000 people being displaced will come from Henan Province. The rest live in reservoir areas in Hubei Province, where the Danjiangkou Reservoir has already been enlarged to supply clean water to Beijing, a city hit by nine consecutive years of drought.

Some 23,085 people will be displaced in Hubei. Housing will be ready for residents of 14 villages in the Danjiangkou Reservoir area with the first likely to move by the end of August.

In Henan, 12 resettlement spots will be built for 10,600 people before September and facilities will be constructed for the remaining 140,000 between 2010 and 2013, said Wang Shushan, head of the provincial project and resettlement program.

The amount of compensation, including placement subsidies, available to farmers will be about 16 times the combined value of the land lost and the average produce from that land during the past three years, sources close to Zhang's office said.

"The resettlement is the crux of the construction, which must be carried out down to the grassroots in a rational way with an open policy and transparent supervision," Zhang said.

He added that it will be important for officials from related sectors to work together to properly serve people being displaced. To encourage officials to do a good job for relocated people, Henan Province will link their performance during the project to future promotion prospects.

The huge water diversion project will consist of eastern, central and western routes.

The central route of the project requires construction of an open-cut canal from Danjiangkou Reservoir on Hanjiang River, the largest tributary of the Yangtze River, to Beijing and Tianjin.

Construction had been bogged down due to issues surrounding investment and other economic and social factors such as rising prices, sources with Zhang's office said.

The project is on track for completion by 2014. Its first phase has a budget of up to 254.6 billion yuan (US$37.1 billion).

(China Daily May 30, 2009)