Rural deputies get busier - villagers get richer

As the new year draws near, Yan Weijun, an elected deputy to the people's congress of Wenling city in Zhejiang Province, gets busier, if not anxious.

On Nov. 28, Yan delivered a report on his work in 2014 before an audience of more than 100 villagers, representatives of more than 7,000 residents in five villages of Xinhe township in the coastal city. The attendees rated his performance anonymously on that day and the results are not yet out.

"I am not sure whether people are satisfied with my work in this year or not," said Yan.

In recent years, villagers in Wenling city have been encouraged by the government to assess the work done by their deputies.

Yan told Xinhua Wednesday that the biggest thing he had done for his village was a tap water supply system, which cost about 6 million yuan (about 960,000 U.S. dollars). Yan's villagers used to drink water pumped from a deep well, but as incomes improved, they were no longer satisfied with the quality of the well water.

The income gap between rural and urban residents has been closing in recent years. The annual net income of rural residents reached 8,896 yuan per person in 2013. The ratio between urban and rural residents' incomes dropped from 3.33:1 in 2009 to 3.03:1 in 2013. The number of people deemed poor dropped from 122 million at the end of 2011 to 82.5 million by the end of 2013.

Wenling is a city of factories: woolen clothes and car decorations are a specialty. In Yan's village, people are getting richer because many of them own their own small businesses. Yan himself runs a factory with 60 workers.

Higher incomes lead to demands to participate in public affairs and the villagers' growing power is not limited to assessing deputies. Since 2005, they have been invited to participate in the township budget.

After discussions this month, Yan learned that an elementary school in Xiaojiaqiao village, where he lives, needed more teachers in 2015. The school of 500 students, only has 19 teachers, but the official quota for the school is 24.

Yan is also a deputy to the people's congress of Xinhe township. He is confident that the deputies will agree to hire more teachers because another village is proposing the same idea, making it a shared concern.

"Children of the urban residents want to be best, so do the children in my village," said Yan.

Yan was reelected in late 2011 to the people's congresses of the township and the city. The change in Yan's work reflects innovative rural management in China. In his previous tenure, he and other deputies did not discuss proposals with villages so often. Now, talking with residents is part of the routine for deputies. He has no choice because residents cast the ballots and rate his performance.