CHANGSHA: Hunan, the central province where nearly 2,000 officials and celebrities were exposed this month for breaking family planning laws, is planning to impose harsher fines on wealthy couples that have unauthorized children.

The standing committee of Hunan provincial people's congress has been discussing a draft amendment to local family planning regulations that would impose a standard fine equal to two to six times an offender's income for the previous year.

The amendment is to take effect on the date it is approved by the provincial people's congress.

"The current penalties are too low for well-off people, and we are raising them to ensure social justice," an official with the Hunan family planning commission said.

According to the draft amendment, offenders will be fined three to five times their annual incomes - on top of the standard fine - for each child after the first unauthorized birth. People who have illegitimate children will face an additional fine of six to eight times their income in the previous year.

The official declined to discuss details about how the fines will be enforced.

The current regulations in Hunan impose a fine equal to double an offender's income during the previous year, and triple for every child after the first unauthorized birth.

Some 1,968 officials in Hunan were found breaching the nation's family planning law between 2000 and 2005, according to the provincial family planning commission.

Also exposed by the commission were 21 national and local lawmakers, 24 political advisors, 112 entrepreneurs and six intellectuals.

A national lawmaker identified by his surname, Li, was keeping four mistresses, with whom he had had four children.

Provincial Governor Zhou Qiang in April ordered local authorities to "expose the celebrities and high-income people who violate the family planning policy and have more than one child".

Such measures have also been adopted in East China's Zhejiang Province and in Central China's Henan Province, the nation's most populous region. Officials belonging to the Communist Party of China will be barred from promotion if they have more children than the law allows.

The family planning policy was enacted in the late 1970s to ensure one child for each family and encourage late marriages and childbearing. The policy was eventually upgraded to the Population and Family Planning Law, which took effect in September 2002.

A survey conducted by the national family planning commission showed that most celebrities and rich people have two children, with 10 percent of them having three.

In Hunan, officials estimate 30 million births have been prevented because of the policy. As the administrator of the province which is the seventh most populous province in China, the Hunan provincial government has vowed to keep its population within 70.1 million by 2010.

Xinhua

(China Daily 07/26/2007 page5)