Southwest China's Yunnan Province will spend about 30 billion yuan (US$4.29 billion) in the coming three years to tackle pollution in Dianchi Lake, the largest freshwater lake on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau.

Yunnan Governor Qin Guangrong listed the work on Dianchi as "top priority" in the building of a modern Kunming, capital of the province, at a conference earlier this week.

Qin said that the project's success relied on the implementation of six sub-programs including pollution source interception, ecological protection, dredging and others.

Under the project, pollutants will be intercepted along all the 29 rivers that feed into the lake and a number of sewage treatment plants will be built.

The local government will also resettle about 30,000 people from lakeside and restore wetlands there by 2010.

Yunnan invested more than 4.7 billion yuan on pollution control in the lake between 1996 and 2005.

The Chinese government has set a timetable for pollution control of the country's major lakes including the 300-square-kilometer Dianchi, aiming to restore them to their original state by 2030.

The country's major lakes - Taihu, Chaohu and Dianchi, which are water sources for millions, have been contaminated by algae blooms, which eat up oxygen in water which in turn leads to the deaths of water creatures and makes the water undrinkable.

(Xinhua News Agency April 19, 2008)