Public gets direct line to senior officials

BEIJING - Deng Ningxi, the owner of a massage center in Meishan, Sichuan province, that employs blind people, mustered up his courage and called the cell phone of Zeng Lebin, chairman of Meishan's Disabled Persons' Federation.

The massage center has been doing poorly since 2010. Deng, 41, who is also blind, cannot make ends meet, but he doesn't want to close the business. Working at the center is the sunshine in the lives of his employees.

Zeng listened to Deng's worries and later contacted blind-massage training centers to get Deng's staff lessons, and he also promoted Deng's center to employees of other government departments.

"Zeng is friendly and approachable. I'm grateful he's willing to take pains to help me," Deng said.

Deng got the cell phone number from Meishan Daily, which last week updated a list of the cell phone numbers of 283 senior officials of the Meishan government and associated officials in districts and counties, including the mayor and the Party leader. The telephone numbers are also available on mshw.net, the newspaper's Web portal.

According to Li Zhuo, director of the Meishan publicity department, the initiative was undertaken to increase and deepen the communication between the senior officials and the general public they work for.