BEIJING - Irrigation has made planting easier for farmer Hou Wenzhang.
The 61-year-old from Yingpantai village in the Ningxia Hui autonomous region has been toiling on farmland for decades, but now the output of his crops has increased 50 percent thanks to drip-irrigation pipes.
The system uses water in an efficient way and saves labor on his three-quarter-hectare farm.
"I don't need to be in the field all the time," Hou said.
The central part of the region is one of China's most drought-stricken areas, with 760,000 of the 1.36 million people having inadequate access to drinking water.
In March 2008, a proposal to build an irrigation project in the region was submitted by deputies of the 11th National People's Congress in Ningxia to the NPC, the country's top legislature.
Yuan Jinlin, an NPC deputy and also director of the Ningxia Development and Reform Commission, said regional poverty is rooted in the shortage of water.
"Water was such a luxury in the region that people used to lock their water cellars before going out," Yuan said.
Lu Xinping, another national lawmaker and a middle school teacher in Yinchuan, capital of Ningxia, recalled that "local farmers used to toil over irrigation, but water was not used efficiently and crops did not grow well".
The proposal was considered by the NPC Standing Committee and passed to the Ministry of Water Resources, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Agriculture, as well as the State Council office on poverty relief.
The ministries decided to build an efficient irrigation system that would cover more than 82,000 hectares in five years in central Ningxia, with an investment of 1.12 billion yuan ($178 million).
By the end of 2011, the irrigation system covered more than 77,000 hectares of farmland, and now more than 200,000 local villagers, including Hou, benefit from the project.
Li Zhenqi, a farm irrigation official in Ningxia, said under the conservation project, water consumed per hectare was only one-fifth that of conventional methods.
Chinese system
The people's congress system is the fundamental political system in China, which has more than 2.7 million lawmakers at various levels, who are elected by respective constituencies, directly or indirectly.
Lawmakers usually learn about the most pressing needs of the people as well as national urgencies.
They push forward implementation of national and local policies, through conducting field studies, collecting public opinions and submitting motions and suggestions.
During the fourth session of the 11th NPC in March 2011, NPC deputies submitted 8,043 proposals, 6 percent more than the previous year.
After that session, the NPC Standing Committee passed the proposals to 177 governmental departments and closely monitored the handling of the proposals.
Jiang Jian, head of Qufu Hospital in Shandong province, has been a national lawmaker for nearly 25 years. She has put forward more than 1,000 proposals, many of which have been carried out.
"I've not had one day off since becoming a legislator. In addition to performing my duty as a hospital head, I have devoted all my spare time to being a national lawmaker," Jiang said.
Her "masterpieces" include a proposal in 2009 on a nationwide food safety inspection after food scandals dampened consumer confidence. The proposal was immediately adopted.
Sources with the top legislature said that proposals concerning food safety had been raised by more than 1,000 lawmakers of the 10th NPC from 2003 to 2007.
The national legislature adopted the Law on Food Safety in 2009, and the State Council set up a food safety commission for supervision.
"Chinese lawmakers are different from parliament members in many other countries," an official working for the national legislature said. "Lawmakers in this country work part time."
Hu Xiaoyan, the first migrant worker to be elected as a national lawmaker in 2008, has kept raising proposals on improving migrants' living and training conditions and their children's education.
Proposals submitted by her and other lawmakers with similar backgrounds were reflected in the government work reports of recent years, as measures of ensuring migrant workers' employment, social insurance and other interests have been written into the work reports.
