The drought season is coming and more and more farmers of our province can drink clean water. The information released by Zhejiang Water Conservancy Division Monday showed that Zhejiang carried out the drinking water project in 2003 ahead of most cities in China. By May 2006, 3.4 billion Yuan has been invested and 4.82 farmers who had difficulty in getting drinking water can drink clean water.

Many farmers in Zhenzhai Town, Pujiang, said that the boiled water was full of yellow floccules before and people dare not wear white shirts. Last year, the fund collected by local government and villagers enabled farmers to drink clean water.

In 2004, 11.29 million farmers could not drink safe water and the drinking water from 6.07 million farmers was polluted. At the same time, only 10 percent water from wells and streams was meet the standard and the epidemic diseases always appeared in some places of Zhejiang Province.

The tap water enterprises are often built by the government, but in Zhejiang where there is sufficient private fund, some tap water enterprises providing drinking water for thousands of people in towns are privately owned.

The related leaders of the division said that in 2003, the provincial government earmarked the special fund for the drinking water for farmers, which has amounted to 340 million Yuan. Meanwhile, the counties and towns invested a lot, take Pujiang as the example, there was only 380 million Yuan available for the county last year, but the actually used fund on drinking water in countryside reached over 60 million Yuan.

According to the statistics, our province has invested 3.4 billion Yuan to the drinking water in countryside, including 510 million from individuals. Due to the flexible investment, the target that had been planned to complete in 2007 was reached ahead of the schedule.

Experts said that from 2003 to May 2006, 4.826 million farmers in Zhejiang Province can drink clean water, covering 74.5 percent, ranking the first in the whole country.

Now, the tap water pipe project is extending to more villages, mountainous areas and islands. Some experts expressed that the drinking water problems of Zhejiang will be solved basically by 2010, which means that over 1.6 million farmers can drink clean water every year in our province.