Resettlement officials in Wanzhou district, Chongqing municipality, have been ordered to move 150 people a day this year so the dam reservoir can be filled on schedule, China Youth Daily (Zhongguo qingnian bao) reports. The reservoir is due to rise to the 135-metre level in June, 2003.

Model resettlement officials who help meet the forced-relocation quota will be eligible for handsome bonuses and promotions, while "incompetent" ones will be demoted or fired, the newspaper said.

Zones that excel at the removals will receive rewards of 200,000 yuan RMB (US$25,000). Government departments and other organizations involved in the resettlement operation could get $1,200, while individuals stand to receive bonuses worth $250, the newspaper said.

Wanzhou is the area most affected by construction of the Three Gorges dam. The rising waters of the reservoir will inundate 31 of the district’s towns and townships, more than 3,300 hectares of its farmland, 400 industrial enterprises and more than 10,000 smaller work units, seven million cubic metres of housing, along with roads, ports and a host of ancient sites.

With dam-related resettlement now at an urgent stage, Communist Party and government officials in Wanzhou have clearly decided that people working at the sharp end of the operation need extra incentives to help them stay in their disagreeable jobs.

Academic researchers working in the Three Gorges area have observed that turnover is high among resettlement workers, who feel squeezed between two hostile camps: Unpopular with the people they have been ordered to move, they are also coming under increasing pressure from higher authorities to do the job quickly.

But delays in receiving compensation funds to disburse to migrants have helped to make their job difficult. In his study focusing on Three Gorges resettlement, one Chinese geographer quotes a resettlement worker as saying: "We are facing a dilemma: The government urges us to move the migrants as soon as possible, but the money always comes late. We encourage migrants to move as early as possible but we are unable to pay them. … Like a mouse inside a bellows, we suffer from both sides."