There is no time to lose for China to beef up its efforts in water pollution control if it wants to tackle the problem of serious water shortage, a top legislator warned Wednesday.  

Addressing a symposium of the National People's Congress (NPC) on the protection of environment and resources, Sheng Huaren, Vice-Chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, said China is facing a severe challenge in its water pollution control.

Though the country has made great efforts to control water pollution, Sheng said, "there are still serious problems."

Pollution infiltrates from tributaries into larger rivers, from surface water into groundwater, and from land to ocean, Sheng said.

Rural areas have become a new victim of water pollution after cities, he said.

Noting that water has become an essential natural resource for the social and economic development of China, Sheng said the country must attach "great importance" to the water shortage problem, as it will become a bottleneck for the country's further development.

The symposium was held from Sunday to Wednesday in Chongqing, a municipality in southwest China, and Yichang, a city in central Hubei Province. The Yangtze River, the country's longest river, runs through the two cities.

The event came as China's media, environmentalists and public are in the midst of a heated discussion on the pollution control of the Huaihe River, a major river that runs through the country's east between the Yangtze and Huanghe (Yellow) rivers.

China waged a cleaning campaign of the Huaihe river, which was heavily polluted since the 1980s, in 1994, but recent media reports showed the pollution problem remains unsolved in the river after a decade of expensive control efforts.

Sheng blamed the practice of seeking economic growth at the expense of environment as the cause of the failure in pollution control.

"It is irrational and unacceptable at all to seek economic growth at a high cost of natural resources and even on the expense of people's health," Sheng said.

It is reported that some villages along the Huaihe River saw high occurrence rate of cancer over recent years and water pollution of the river and its tributaries are believed to be the root cause.

China's central leadership last year made a guideline for the country's officials to cultivate a "scientific conception of development." Sheng urged local officials to keep the "scientific conception" at heart in their pollution control work.

It is also necessary, Sheng noted, to improve the country's laws on environmental protection and reinforce the efficacy of environmental laws and regulations.

As there is problem with law enforcement in pollution control, Sheng said, some violators are not punished.

Sheng urged NPC deputies to carry out their duty as watchdogs and play an appropriate role in China's pollution control efforts through investigations and proposals to decision makers.

(Xinhua News Agency October 14, 2004)