Many subway passengers in Beijing noticed something distinctly different about their journey yesterday.

The beggars and illegal hawkers were mostly gone.

An official two-month campaign began yesterday to weed out "uncivilized" behavior on the subway environment, used by some 1.5 million commuters a day.

"The beggars and peddlers on trains have badly disturbed the environment and impacted passengers' mood," reads a circular issued by Beijing subway carrier.

Enforcement groups patrolled the four major subway lines including Line One and the Loopline.

Anyone caught violating the new rules was to be evicted from the subway.

Beggars are quite common on the subway lines.

"Honestly speaking, people do show sympathy to those disadvantageous groups," Bao Xiaohao, a 27-year-old commuter in Beijing, said.

"But it's really very scary and disgusting to see the explicit exposure of burn and injured arms sticking out to you."
While some passengers said begging was necessary for survival for many unfortunate people, others disliked "professional begging".

Some beggars are in fact swindlers.

Many of them work in pairs, and employed by contractors to beg for money.

Sources from the public traffic security team affiliated to the municipal public security bureau acknowledged the practice, but declined to reveal further details.

Sun Lijie, from Beijing Transit Railway Operation Corporation said the begging issue was a "dilemma", as subway operators faced increasing pressure from commuters to do something about the problem.

Sun said all the company can do is to expel them from the train stations.

"Due to a lack of enforcement measures and regulations, those unwanted groups repeatedly return after being cleared out," Sun said.

"Currently, increasing personnel on patrol to guard the stations is the only way to tackle this."

Advanced management measures such as limiting riding time on a single trip was also needed to solve the problem, he said.

(China Daily July 10, 2007)