Criminal case spotlights water regulation effort

A criminal charged as an accessory in a case of evading water fees was fined and sentenced to five years in prison recently, a move that Beijing's water resource authority said aims to show a strong determination to regulate the industries that use water resources in Beijing.

The accessory worked for a barreled-water production company in Shunyi district that was found to have cheated by 33,400 tons in its use of underground water between September 2011 and April 2013.

The public security authority also has issued a warrant for the fugitive manager of the company, the major suspect.

The accessory criminal, surnamed Zhang, lied about the amount of water that had been used and paid only around 360,000 yuan ($58,000), which was about 1.69 million yuan less than the fees that should have been charged, according to the report from the Beijing Water Authority.

The case shows that authorities including water and pricing departments in Beijing will take more steps to regulate the use of water resources in water-consuming industries like car washing, bathing places, artificial ski fields, golf courses and companies using water as a raw material.

The joint enforcement campaign focuses on illegal use of water resources, including cheating in the amount of water consumption and wasting water resources. It will last till the end of the year, the Beijing Water Authority said.