Starting this year, Qinghai will complete a settlement program for nomadic people within five years. By then, more than 112,000 households, or over 530,000 nomadic people, in the Tibetan-inhabited areas of Qinghai Province will leave their nomadic lives. Qinghai will initially build residential houses for 10,000 nomadic households this year, with a total investment of 646 million yuan.

The Tibetan-inhabited areas of Qinghai, which consist of the five Tibetan autonomous prefectures Yushu, Golog, Hainan, Huangnan and Haibei, and the Haixi Mongolian-Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, possess a total of 152,859 households in the pastoral farming sector, or 716,060 herders. To date, 112,592 households, or 530,101 people, have not yet settled down. Nomadic life leads to great inconveniences in herders' work and daily lives in various areas such as medical care and children's school enrollment, while it also restricts the further development of the local economy and society.

According to the Settlement Project Planning for Tibetan Nomads in Qinghai Province, which has already been issued, after over 112,000 nomadic households settle down, the government will correspondingly build 90,983 drinking water projects for humans and livestock, and complete supplementary construction projects such as warm sheds for livestock and road paving. Problems including power supply for settled herders will be resolved as well.

By People's Daily Online