Inner Mongolia’s 2014 work meeting on rural pasturing areas mapped out the “Ten Full Coverage” project. The region plans to implement the project over three years to improve public services in rural pasturing areas, with goals of developed production, better lives, a clean environment and a democratic system of management.

Background:

The urbanization rate in Inner Mongolia autonomous region is 57 percent. There are still 14.64 million non-urban residents, over 10 million of whom live in the rural pasturing areas. More than 5.8 million people are directly engaged in farming and animal husbandry, accounting for 44.7 percent of the region’s total workforce.

Goals:

The project’s key task is to give farmers and herders higher incomes. By implementing this project, the region strives to improve working and living conditions in rural pasturing areas, grant them more independent property rights, promote continuous and rapid income growth, and balance urban-rural income to improve their lives.

1. Reconstruction of old and dilapidated buildings

According to the project, the region will build 550,000 affordable houses between 2014 and 2017, with an investment of 101.8 billion yuan ($15.98 billion), 88.63 billion of which will be earmarked for renovating shanty areas involving 455,000 households. The total number of affordable houses will be 2.1 million by 2017.

Construction started on 114,000 houses in August 2014 of which 55,000 are complete.

2. Safe drinking water

The project is designed to guarantee safe drinking water in 3,575 gacha (a village-level administrative division) benefiting 3.52 million people from 2014 to 2017.

By the end of 2017, all villages and gacha should have safe drinking water, and those in with good conditions accessible to running water.

By August 2014, the drinking water project has begun in 3,462 locations, covering 690,000 people.

3. Roads improvement

It will take three years to build cement roads in all 8,868 villages. Until August last year, 3,045 sites have started to improve rural and pastural roads, covering 4,004 kilometers altogether.

4. Power in villages

The project will upgrade the power supply in rural pasturing areas and make electricity accessible to every household. Last year the project upgraded the wind-solar photovoltaic hybrid generation system in 44,436 households and made electricity accessible to 3,222 households.

5. Television, broadcasting and telecommunications

The project will complete the construction of satellite direct broadcast and television in 920,000 households in three years. In addition to the construction already complete in 1.78 million households, 8.6 million farmers and herdsmen will benefit.

Meanwhile, the government will expand broadband coverage in the region’s villages to enable residents in rural pasturing areas to enjoy the same public services in radio, television and broadband as urban residents.

6. School building construction and safety reconstruction

The project will build or rebuild primary schools (including teaching locations), kindergartens and junior high schools in the rural areas over three years.

These school buildings will be built in strict accordance with the Law on Protecting Against and Mitigating Earthquake Disasters.

7. Construction of standardized clinics

Between 2014 and 2017, the region will build 5,894 health care clinics in 11,224 administration villages. A total of 1,965 standardized clinics will be built in the project’s first year.

8. Construction of culture centers

The government will improve the coverage, qualification and usage of public cultural facilities by constructing more culture centers in gacha and villages, to provide standardized and equal basic cultural services to the public.

With a budget of 18 million yuan, the government plans to purchase and allocate cultural devices to culture centers in 3506 villages in accordance with the project.

9. Convenience stores

Based on an initiative of the Ministry of Commerce to lead chain stores and supermarkets in rural areas, the Ten Full Coverage project strives to achieve the full coverage of chain convenience stores in gacha and villages with suitable conditions.

As the 2014 plan revealed, 1,700 new rural convenience stores and 12 new distribution centers will be established in the project’s first year. By mid-August 2014, 953 were complete.

10. Social security project

The project strives to guarantee social security of permanent residents in rural pasturing areas, including medical, basic living allowance and social endowment insurance. In 2012, Inner Mongolia established the full coverage of rural-urban social endowment insurance system in the whole region by integrating the insurance systems for rural and urban residents.

According to the plan for 2014, an elderly population of 111,200 octogenarian residents will get an extra 100 yuan subsidy. By August, 112,000 qualified senior residents got the extra subsidy, and the pension system benefited 1.79 million rural residents.