Beijing targets 60 villages in effort to improve safety, control migrant population
Authorities hope to improve living conditions and 'prevent collective deaths or injuries'
The capital of China will launch a special mission to overhaul more than 60 villages in the greater Beijing area in the next four months to reduce the size of the “floating population” to try to prevent any “mass-casualty incidents”, an office of the city’s public safety bureau said yesterday.
This mission follows requests to provide high-level security during the National Day holidays and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Beijing in November, reported the Beijing Youth Daily.
The 60 villages are located in eight of the city’s 14 districts, with 14 of them in Daxing District in the southern suburbs, the Beijing Times reported.
The newspaper also reported that the villages on the list share some common problems – deteriorating public safety, illegal construction sites, unsanitary living conditions and a large disproportion between the floating population and the registered population. The floating population of Xindian village located in the Chaoyang district, for instance, is 43 times greater than the registered one, the Times reported, the highest ratio of any village in Beijing.
The priority is to reduce the amount of illegal construction and the size of the floating population. In the meantime, the mission also aims to prevent any incident that could cause a large number of casualties, officials at the public safety bureau told mainland media.
“No more residential constructions, no more people moving in, that’s our primary goal,” an official told the Daily. “After several months, there should be no accident with casualties, no fire safety issues.”
“To those who are currently living in the villages, it’s impossible for us to kick them out. So there has to be a process” that may take some time to implement in order to fix the problems, an official told the Times. As part of that effort, the authorities have decided to control the water and electricity supply, limiting the amount that flows to various villages.
However, no details about any possible relocating were provided yesterday.
To enhance surveillance on the floating population, officials will pay special attention to apartments for rent. Residents moving in and out should report to appropriate government agencies, the Daily said. Officials will also conduct security checks on the apartment buildings.
According to the Times, authorities will also target illegal businesses, including those involved in medicine, production of food and flammable hazardous substances and the printing of advertisements.