Migrants From Three Gorges Project Well ArrangedLiving conditions for 6,600 residents from the Three Gorges Project on the Yangtze River and no being resettled in 11 other provinces and municipalities this year have been greatly improved.The per capita living floor space for the migrants has reached 25 square meters, and most of the housing for them are built of brick and concrete, and half of the houses are storied buildings. Their new houses have met average living standards or moderately better-off living standards, said Qi Lin, head of the Resettlement Affairs Bureau of Three Gorges Project Construction Committee. According to Qi, the provinces and municipalities with the migrants from the Three-Gorge Areas, especially those with comparatively developed economy in the country, have taken a wide range of measures to help the migrants in building new houses. These measures include granting each migrant a house construction subsidy between 1,000 yuan (120.5 U.S. dollars) and 5, 000 yuan (about 602 U.S. dollars), or giving migrants tax exemptions if they choose to build houses by themselves or to buy idle flats in their new hometowns, said Qi. Most of the migrants have been allotted about 0.067 hectares of arable land per person in the resettlement regions, and the land is all high-yield farmland with necessary water control works, which has laid a good foundation for the migrants to stay and become prosperous in the resettled places, Qi went on. Thanks to the regional migration, the migrants have seen changes in their concepts with their vision being broadened. Migrants who are from the mountainous region along the Yangtze near the Three Gorges Project to Chenzhou of central China's Hunan Province are deeply influenced by the strong market economy atmosphere there and have learned from local residents to build greenhouses for growing vegetables, and make money by selling the vegetables to residents in nearby towns. Construction on the world's largest hydropower project in Yichang in central China's Hubei Province began in 1993 with estimated static investment of 50.09 billion yuan (about US$6.04 billion), upon completion in 2009. The entire project requires the relocation of about 1.2 million residents from the Three Gorges Reservoir area, said earlier reports. |
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