Bureau to manage supply, conservation
Beijing has set up a bureau to manage the city's water resources in the hope of saving the drought-ridden capital at least 400 million cubic metres of water each year.
From tomorrow, the Beijing Water Affairs Bureau will centralise the management of the city's water and be responsible for supply, conservation, drainage and sewage treatment.
'The current management [by several departments] blurs the boundaries between government and enterprise. The water seller naturally wants to sell as much water as possible, the water price is inappropriate and no-one really cares about leaks. No one really takes responsibility for saving water,' a Ministry of Water Resources official told the Beijing News.
Professor Yang Dongping , vice-chairman of Friends of Nature, the mainland's leading environmental-protection NGO, said: 'The new plan is good news, as Beijing is suffering from an extremely serious water shortage and there is no powerful, across-the-board authority to push the water-saving cause.
'There is a huge amount of water wasted in Beijing and this is cause for much concern. The great majority of people who live in the city don't realise how worrying the condition is, despite the city experiencing its fifth consecutive year of drought. This is because the water price is too low.'
