Hearings:
A New Feature of Everyday Chinese Life
By
staff reporter QIAO TIANBI
Several years ago,
at Spring Festival Guangzhou Railway Station was always
packed with passengers waiting for trains. |
"MY attendance at this hearing is on
behalf of migrant workers -- the most common consumers at the
grassroots level. In my opinion, raising ticket prices for reasons
of regulating the flow of rail passengers is invalid. As migrant
workers from rural areas, we all want to go home to see our
parents, wives and children during the Spring Festival holiday.
But our wages are the lowest of anyone. To us, even the regular
price of a train ticket is unaffordable, as going home costs
10 percent of our annual income, even with no price increase.
I therefore disagree with the raising of train ticket prices
during Spring Festival."
This was a speech made by Wu Shulin at the
hearing held on January 12, 2002, on passenger train ticket
prices, presided over by the State Development and Planning
Commission. Wu Shulin, aged 32, a native of Anhui Province,
has worked in Beijing as a construction worker for 15 years.
At first, he earned only a few dozen yuan per month, but now,
as a foreman, his monthly salary is 1,200 yuan, while the average
monthly salary of the workers in his company is around 700 yuan.
Wu's wife and child - a first grader, are both in Anhui. Every
year he goes home to spend the Spring Festival with his family.
The 12 representatives of consumers
at the public hearing. |
The railroad is first choice for long-distance
transport in China, but its supply falls far short of the huge
demand. China's railroad mileage is one of the longest in the
world, but its per capita length is shorter than a cigarette.
Rapid economic development in recent years has resulted in the
demands on the railroad steadily increasing, especially those
emanating from migrant workers whose homes are in rural areas.
During the "Spring Transportation" period (encompassing
the 15 days before and 25 days after the Spring Festival), huge
waves of migrant workers heading home for Spring Festival, as
well as vast numbers of students taking their winter vacation,
have combined to bring unprecedented pressure on the railways.
According to statistics, during this period, the railway transports
100 million passengers, and all the trains on trunk railways
are seriously overcrowded. On January 24, 1998, nearly 300,000
passengers were held up at Guangzhou Railway Station, and it
was impossible for them to get normal service. A one-square-meter
toilet was packed with seven to eight people, and there were
cases of passengers jumping out of the train to escape the stifling
overcrowding.
In view of this situation, railway departments
raised the price of train tickets, aiming to reduce the number
of passengers travelling during the Spring Festival, but this
caused great resentment among consumers. In 2001, Qiao Zhanxiang,
a lawyer in Hebei Province, and Yang Lirong, a railway worker
in Sichuan Province, applied to the Ministry of Railways for
administrative reconsideration of this issue. The China National
Consumers Association also issued an "inquiry letter"
to the Ministry of Railways, inquiring about the legitimacy
and rationality of raising the price of train tickets during
Spring Festival. The Price Law of the People's Republic of China,
which came into effect on May 1, 1998, stipulates that when
determining the prices of services and commodities relating
to the staples of public daily life, such as the prices of public
services, a public hearing must be held. This should be presided
over by the government department in charge of pricing, and
opinions should be sought from consumers and operators, and
the necessity and feasibility of any rise in prices discussed.
Under such circumstances, the first national-level public hearing
was held on January 12, 2002.
The results of this hearing were announced
to the public. The financial capacity of low-income consumers
had been taken into account, as regards the scope and degree
of price floating, and the increase in hard-seat carriage prices
was consequently the smallest. The general public still takes
delight in talking about this public hearing, because it has
introduced a brand-new concept into their lives. This year further
public hearings will be held, giving people the opportunity
to have more say in government policy-making.
