NPC launches inspection to ensure elderly's rights
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The Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress (NPC), the country's top legislature, launched national inspections Wednesday to ensure the interests and rights of the elderly are protected properly in accordance with the law.
The top legislature planned to send seven inspection groups to seven provincial-level areas including Shanghai, Anhui, Fujian, Shandong, Yunnan, Shaanxi and Xinjiang from May to July, according to a statement released after the first plenary session of the inspection groups.
In written instructions forwarded to Wednesday's meeting, Wu Bangguo, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, said the inspections aimed at urging the government to attach more importance to elderly's welfare and improve mechanisms to provide better services and protection for them.
Li Jianguo, vice chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, said at the meeting that the rapidly growing aging population is presently one of China's major challenges.
Chinese people aged 60 years and older comprised 13.26 percent of the total population of 1.34 billion people at the end of 2010. The total is 2.93 percentage points higher than the proportion recorded in the 2000 census, figures from the National Bureau of Statistics show.
The lawmakers would check the old-age insurance scheme for urban and rural residents, medical care system for the elderly, aid for elderly with financial difficulties, as well as home-based and institution-sponsored care service for the elderly, Li said.
The inspection groups will also check to see how the elderly participate in the country's social development, he said.
Li hoped the national lawmakers could discover prominent and universal problems, and put forward suggestions for relevant government agencies to tackle these problems.
Apart from the seven national inspection groups, provincial-level legislatures in other areas will be entrusted by the NPC to supervise the enforcement of the law in their respective jurisdictions.
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