All Tibetan-inhabited areas in Sichuan out of poverty
By Lin Zhibo,
Wang Mingfeng, People’s Daily
The last 16 impoverished counties
in Tibetan-inhabited areas in southwest China’s Sichuan province have been
removed from the country’s list of impoverished counties, the Sichuan
Provincial People’s Government announced on Feb.18.
The 16 counties include Heishui
county, Rangtang county and Aba county in Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous
Prefecture, and Yajiang county, Luhuo county, and Seda county in Garze Tibetan
Autonomous Prefecture. So far, all the 32 counties in the Tibetan areas in
Sichuan have shaken off poverty, including Muli county in Liangshan Yi
Autonomous Prefecture.
People of Tibetan ethnic minority
group live in two prefectures in Sichuan province, namely, the Aba Tibetan and
Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, and the Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, and
in Muli county, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture.
By the end of 2013, there were
2,063 poverty-stricken villages and 360,000 impoverished people in
Tibetan-inhabited areas in Sichuan, and the incidence of poverty stood at 20.1
percent.
As of the end of 2019, all the 32
poor counties and 2,063 poor villages had shaken off poverty, and the poor
population and poverty incidence of the Tibetan areas had been reduced to 2,400
and 0.1 percent, respectively.
In recent years, Sichuan province
has intensified efforts to formulate favorable policies and provide strong
support and guidance for industrial development and poverty alleviation in
Tibetan-inhabited areas, concentrating superior forces for poverty alleviation
in impoverished Tibetan-inhabited areas.
In 2013, Sichuan province focused
its efforts on the implementation of six projects for improving people’s
livelihood, with capital projects targeting poverty-stricken counties in
Tibetan areas and favorable policies prioritizing support for such industries
as education, health, transportation, and water conservancy.
In 2017, the province issued
guidelines on four major tasks for poverty alleviation, including enhancing
support for poverty alleviation, accelerating construction of industrial parks,
and implementing the project for promoting the role of talents in
revitalization of rural areas, further intensifying support and assistance for
severely impoverished areas.
Sichuan has accumulatively
allocated 10.76 billion yuan (about $1.53 billion) as special government funds
for poverty alleviation and integrated around 28.69 billion yuan of government
funds concerning agriculture and rural areas to help with the task of
alleviating poverty in Tibetan-inhabited areas.
The province pays high attention
to improving the lives of Tibetan people. The province has earnestly
implemented a strict responsibility system to address school dropout rates and
ensure attendance, and created five innovative systems to make sure that all
school-age children from poor families receive compulsory education.
The five innovative systems
include comparing information of household registration system and student status
management system on a regular basis, implementing centralized management for
identity cards of students enrolled in compulsory education, and compensating
overage students for the school education they have missed.
Besides, the province has promoted
expansion and quality improvement of free education by continuously
implementing 15-year free education in regions inhabited by ethnic minorities
and three-year free vocational education after nine-year free compulsory
education in Tibetan-inhabited areas.
It has made efforts to speed up
standardization of medical and health institutions throughout the province. So
far, health centers in towns and clinics in villages of impoverished counties
of Sichuan province have all met relevant standards.
In addition, the individual
contributions of Sichuan’s poor population to the basic medical insurance
schemes for urban and rural citizens are fully paid by government, while the
proportion of medical expenses paid by poor households for medical treatment in
their counties has been kept within 5 percent.
Sichuan has also worked with
various forces around the country to form concerted efforts to help its
Tibetan-inhabited areas overcome poverty.
Under the province’s efforts to
give stronger support to targeted poor areas and encourage the eastern region
to help in the alleviation of poverty in the western region, 34 counties in 8
cities from Guangdong and Zhejiang provinces have partnered with 32
impoverished counties in Sichuan’s Tibetan-inhabited areas.
The province also communicated
with the 5 units of the central government helping lift targeted
Tibetan-inhabited areas out of poverty, and helped expand and innovate poverty
alleviation ideas for 9 counties in these areas.
Besides, Sichuan enhanced the
efforts of the units in the province on poverty alleviation pair work in
Tibetan-inhabited areas. It ensured that every impoverished county was assisted
by 1 to 3 departments (units) directly under the provincial government, 1-3
institutions of higher education, more than 1 medical institution and 1 to 3
state-owned enterprises and financial institutions.
Twenty-three counties in the
relatively developed 6 cities of the province paired with 32 impoverished
counties in Tibetan-inhabited areas, and each one of the former would allocate
around 0.3 to 0.5 percent of their fiscal revenue to help the latter each year.
Picturesque scenery of Mao county
in beautiful fog and clouds in Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture,
southwest China’s Sichuan province, Dec.20, 2019. (Photo by Liu
Guoxing/People’s Daily Online)
All Tibetan-inhabited areas in Sichuan out of poverty
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