A new family planning reward policy is to be introduced in 23 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions across the country this year.

According to the new policy, rural couples with only one child or two daughters will be eligible for a cash reward of no less than 600 yuan (US$72) each year when they are 60 years old. The reward will last for the rest of their lives.

In east China's Anhui Province, which began practicing the new policy recently, approximately 50,000 rural seniors are eligible for the cash reward this year, according to the Anhui Provincial Committee for Family Planning.

The province also stipulates that those who have only one daughter or whose only child died can get 240 yuan (US$29) more.

The strategy of promoting care for girls and rewarding farmers for following the national family planning policy aims to guide farmers to maintain the low birth rate while addressing the high sexual imbalance.

China's family planning policy, launched in the late 1970s to check China's rapid population growth, has reduced the country's population by an estimated 300 million. But the policy has also negatively impacted some rural families lack of male laborers.

Last year, more than 310,000 farmers in 10 cities of the five provinces where the pilot project was launched received around 200 million yuan (US$24 million) in cash rewards for having only one child or two daughters.

At present, China's central budget covers some 80 percent of the reward allowances paid in China's less developed western regions, while in the better-developed eastern coastal regions all the reward money is paid from the local budgets.

Concerned localities have adopted measures to guarantee the strict implementation of the new policy.

Anhui Province stipulates that people who are found to misappropriate reward allowances, cover up problems, practice fraud and provide false evidence will be harshly punished or even face lawsuits.

(Xinhua News Agency October 23, 2005)