Thousands in limbo over delay in giant water diversion project

Resettlement of hundreds of thousands of people remains the biggest challenge for a massive water-diversion project that aims to relieve the nation's drought-hit north, officials have admitted.

Officials in Nanyang , Henan, where about 160,000 people will be moved in the next few years to make way for the central route for the South-North Water Diversion Project, described it as 'an arduous task', China News Service said.

Yao Longqi, a vice-mayor of Nanyang, went on to complain that despite talks of imminent resettlement for years, the relocation scheme had yet to start, and the local economy and people's livelihoods had been badly affected by the project, according to a local-government website.

'The immediate result of the delayed relocation scheme is that people waiting to be displaced don't have a stable life, production activities have almost been halted, and socio-economic development and local families have been restricted,' he said.

The ambitious project, designed to channel some 50 billion cubic metres of water from the Yangtze River northwards along three routes, has been under way since 2002 despite growing fears over its effectiveness, huge resettlement scheme and worsening river pollution.

With up to 14.5 billion cubic metres of water a year diverted northwards from the Danjiangkou reservoir, the central route of the project will displace 330,000 people in five cities and counties in Hubei and Henan by 2010.