Private contractors to be invited in pollution battle  

环保部拟向社会购买环保服务 防资金被雁过拔毛

《经济参考报》记者日前从环保部权威人士处获悉，为了防止相关部门和企业“雁过拔毛”，蚕食相关环保资金，目前环保部拟出台《政府采购环境服务指导意见》(以下简称《意见》)，征求意见工作已经基本完成并报送。[查看全文]

(ECNS) -- China's Ministry of Environmental Protection is planning to unveil a draft on government procurement of environment service to prevent depletion of environment protection funds.

Professional enterprises will replace local governments to construct and operate pollution monitoring systems, according to the Economic Information Daily, a newspaper under Xinhua News Agency, who cited an anonymous senior official.

The move is to better utilize the environment funds and attract private capital, the official said.

Collecting and disposing wastewater and solid waste from rural and urban citizens, river protection, urban landscaping and national park clean-ups are all included in the environment service.

Local government will no longer be involved in building wastewater disposal plants, the official said. A contractor will take on that work, and the government only needs to pay after getting results, such as how many tons of wastewater were disposed.

The move will fight appropriating environment funds for other uses, and invite more private capital in environmental protection fields, the official added.

To battle pollution, the central government has allocated 210.9 billion yuan ($33 billion) on energy-saving and environmental protection for 2014, and many local governments also allocated a large sum.