A total of 1.13 million people will be relocated when the world's largest hydro-power is completed in 2009.

"Most of the Three Gorges resettlers will be moved to safe places above the 175-meter line near the dam area," said Zhang Baoxin, a relocation official with the Three Gorges Construction Committee under the State Council.

However, in order to avoid the negative effects of relocation on the fragile environment and ensure the reservoir is completed on schedule in November, China launched a three-year plan in 1999 to resettle 125,000 Three Gorges residents to 11 other provinces and cities along the Yangtze River or the eastern coasts.

"These southern and eastern provinces and cities will be the primary consumers of electricity generated by the Three Gorges Hydro-Power Plant, when the project comes into operation in June next year," Zhang said.

The Chinese Government has promised Three Gorges resettlers that their general standard of living will be higher in their new homes.

The 120,000 Three Gorges residents are allowed to have a free choice of the 11 destinations. According to the resettlement rules promulgated by the State Council, every household may send one person to investigate the family's destination before the final decision is made, with the State covering the travel cost.

The Three Gorges people have settled in their new homes in thousands of villages with three to five households in each village on average. Each resettler is given 40,000 yuan for relocation.

The resettlers are usually welcomed by their new neighbors with crops ready for harvest in the field allocated to them, although the reserve of arable land is limited in the 11 provinces and cities.

Li Anchun made his new home in Jiangsu Province after traveling to the province twice. "I chose to buy a second-hand house near a river. The house is very cheap and the field is ideal for growing vegetables."

Li's family earned 10,000 yuan from selling vegetables last year, double their yearly income in their hometown of Chongqing. Li attributed this to the convenient transport and huge market demand in the eastern region.

Xu Jibo was among the first group of Three Gorges resettlers moved far from their hometown to Shanghai two years ago.

"The relocation has fundamentally changed my family's life," said Xu, who found the city could offer his children better education and job opportunities.

Resettlement from the Three Gorges has been made at the end of August and the start of September every year, the time when the intense heat of the summer has just passed, students can catch the start of a new semester, and autumn harvest is around the corner.

Last Batch

A group of 1,859 residents from the Three Gorges region became the latest and last batch of immigrants to arrive in Shanghai before the dam area is flooded next year.

They arrived at the city's Baoyang Wharf at the weekend, fulfilling Shanghai's share of resettling 5,505 people from Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality.

Officials said the arrival of the immigrants in Shanghai meant the long-distance movement of residents from the dam area has effectively been completed.

Ou Huishu, chief director with Chongqing Municipal Migration Bureau, said more than 116,000 residents from Chongqing and Central China's Hubei Province have been resettled across the country since 1999.

Ou, who accompanied the latest batch of migrants to Shanghai, revealed that around a million residents in the Three Gorges area will have to move to make way for the gigantic hydropower project.

Ou said 500,000 people will have been relocated by the end of this year. The whole migration process is set to be completed by 2009 and the reservoir in the Three Gorges will begin to store water on June 1.

The newcomers to Shanghai, most of whom are farmers, will be settled in suburban areas of the city such as Chongming, Nanhui, Jinshan, Qingpu, Songjiang and Jiading. There is demand for farmhands in these districts and workers in neighbouring township businesses, according to the publicity office of the municipal government.

Each immigrant family will be offered a new house, a plot of farmland, financial subsidies and some daily necessities, according to the office.

Publicity official Wang Wei also said children of the immigrant families could start school immediately.

According to the sources with the municipal government, more than 3,000 migrants to Shanghai have had their living conditions improved, with more than 30 per cent working at local businesses or social institutions.

(People's Daily September 3, 2002)