China's procuratorate authority is to intensify its efforts to watch over government officials in the rural areas, in case their duty dereliction and power abuse may lead to violation of farmers' interests.

The country's procuratorate organs will strengthen its efforts to investigate and settle criminal cases caused by officials' duty dereliction and power abuse, officials with the Supreme People's Procuratorate told a press conference on Thursday.

Efforts will focus on juicy areas such as construction and government subsidy distribution, officials say.

The move came amid the procuratorate's efforts to safeguard the millions of farmers' interests, improve their livelihood and promote the battle against corruption in the rural areas, said Wang Zhenchuan, deputy procurator-general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, at the press conference.

The eight areas are infrastructure building such as road construction, energy grids upgrading; government subsidy distribution; environment conservation investment; public welfare projects such as fund for medicare, social security and primary education; land acquisition and compensation; public welfare donations such as fund for disaster relief, migration; reform projects of land and forest property; leadership election below township levels.

In China, farmers often complain about violation of rightful interests and receiving less compensation than they deserve.

A work report delivered by Chinese procurator-general Jia Chunwang in March said prosecutors investigated more than 209,000 officials from 2002 to 2007, down 13.2 percent from the previous five years, in almost 180,000 cases of embezzlement, bribery, dereliction of duty and rights violation, down 9.9 percent. But the number of convicted rose 30.7 percent to almost 117,000.

(Xinhua News Agency May 9, 2008)