The General Office of the State Council Concerning Opinions on Further Reducing Peasants' Burden Work

The State Council issued (2012) No. 22

The people's governments of provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government, the ministries and commissions of the State Council, and the agencies directly under the State Council:

In recent years, with the gradual implementation of the national policy of strengthening agriculture, benefiting the peasants, and increasing farmer’s income and the continuous strengthening of peasant burden supervision, the peasant burden has generally remained at a relatively low level. Contradictions caused by this have been greatly reduced, and the rural cadre-population relationship has improved significantly. . However, in recent periods, some localities have placed less emphasis on reducing the burden on peasants, the supervision has weakened, the problem of farm-related arbitrary charges has continued to appear, and the phenomenon of apportioning funds to farmers has risen. The problem of deduction occurs from time to time, and the implementation of fundraising and raising of funds is not standardized enough. The burden of peasants in some areas has grown rapidly. In order to do a better job of reducing the burden on peasants and effectively prevent the peasant burden from rebounding, with the consent of the State Council, the following opinions are now proposed:

I. The overall requirements for the work of easing farmers’ burdens should be clearly defined. The work of alleviating peasants’ burdens should be done. The scientific concept of development should be fully implemented. The peasants’ legitimate rights and interests should be protected. The focus should be on standardizing farmer’s fees. The burden monitoring work is integrated into the overall development of urban and rural areas, strengthens rural social management, implements the policy of strengthening agriculture, benefiting agriculture, and enriching agriculture. It extends the supervision of peasant burdens to rural infrastructure construction, rural public services, and agricultural socialization services, and innovates regulatory ideas. Expand the scope of supervision, strengthen work measures, strengthen system construction, strictly prohibit all kinds of unreasonable charges and fund-raising, resolutely correct violations of policy provisions to increase the burden on peasants, ensure that the burden on peasants is kept at a low level, and promote the harmony and stability of rural society.

2. Strict management of fees and prices involving agriculture The administrative charges for farmers must be strictly collected in accordance with laws and regulations and the relevant regulations of the State Council. It is strictly forbidden to “charge” or apportion various expenses to farmers. Strictly implement the “audit system” for agricultural fees collection documents to prevent the introduction of policy papers that increase the burden on peasants; comprehensively promote the “public notice system” concerning agricultural fees and prices, update the content of public notices, and innovate the forms of public notice to increase transparency of charges. Strengthen the key supervision on rural compulsory education, family planning, farmer building, marriage registration, slaughtering of live pigs and other areas, conduct in-depth special inspections of the industry, and solve outstanding problems reflected by farmers. For schools in the compulsory education stage in rural areas, students must adhere to the principle of voluntarily enlisting supplemental materials, and must not break through the “one instruction and one auxiliary”; highlight the public welfare of student canteens and reasonably control the price of meals, and must not collect meals from diners on a semester or year basis. It is strictly forbidden to apportion teacher salaries and activity funds to village organizations in the name of sponsorships and donations. For those farmers who do not comply with relevant laws and regulations for children, except for the collection of social maintenance fees in accordance with the law, it is forbidden to collect other fees. For farmers who use rural collective land to build or renovate self-use housing in accordance with the law, in addition to collecting the land and building ownership certificate fee, it is forbidden to collect other fees. For farmers registered for marriage, in addition to collecting the cost of marriage registration certificate, other fees are strictly forbidden. For pig farmers, it is forbidden to charge extra fees for the collection of slaughter. The compensation fees for various subsidies for farmers may not be deducted and paid for other expenses, and may not be used for "carriage ride" charges or for the placement of goods. It is necessary to further improve relevant policies and measures and reduce farmers' water fee expenditures on the basis of summarizing the experience of the pilot reform of comprehensive water pricing in agriculture.

Third, standardize the implementation of villagers to discuss fundraising and fundraising projects and raise funds for fundraising. It is necessary to fully respect the wishes of farmers, strictly regulate the proceedings, accurately define the scope of application, and reasonably determine the limits. The provincial people's governments must further improve the implementation of fundraising measures for villagers in the region. From 2013 onwards, the standard for fundraising and raising allowances will be determined in absolute terms. If the project does not require peasants to work or the peasants are not able to complete the work, it may not be able to raise labor. If the peasants are actually required to hire workers, they must reasonably determine the amount of labor to be raised according to the actual needs. If the project is voluntary, the quantity, proportion, and labor price must be strictly controlled. Standards prevent voluntary fundraising on behalf of the farmers in disguise. We will improve the procedures for fundraising and fund raising, and follow the procedures of democratic deliberations, program review, government subsidies, and acceptance inspections to standardize the implementation of the organization. We will intensify special inspections, resolutely correct the standards and authority of the decentralization of allowances at the layers of the township, make overall plans for the use of townships and townships, concentrate the management of county-level funds, raise funds for raising funds, and solicit and misappropriate government subsidies. We will comprehensively promote the construction of village-level public welfare undertakings, discuss financial compensation work, increase the amount of subsidies, expand the coverage of awards, improve the system, and promote the healthy development of village-level public welfare undertakings.

IV. In-depth governance Aggravating the burden on village-level organizations and farmers' specialized cooperatives Strengthen the routine review and supervision of the fees charged to village-level organizations to prevent arbitrary charges and various apportionment actions. It is forbidden to transfer construction and service costs and departmental work expenses that should be borne by the government to village-level organizations, and it is forbidden for local authorities or units to entrust village-level organizations to collect fees from farmers. Village-level organizations are not allowed to set up projects to charge farmers, and it is forbidden to manage village affairs with fines and illegal deposits and breach of contract payments. Strict implementation of the village-level organization's public subscription subscription system for newspapers and magazines, prohibiting any organizations and individuals from apportioning publications such as newspapers, books, and audio-visual products to village-level organizations, and gradually increasing the number of major party newspapers and periodicals to provide free reading to village-level organizations. Strengthen the supervision of farmers' professional cooperatives' burdens, intensify the management of arbitrary charges, arbitrary fines, and fund-raising apportionments, intensify dynamic supervision and follow-up inspections, and promote the implementation of various preferential support policies.

V. Establishing and improving the peasant burden supervision system We must establish and improve the system concerning the peasant burden policy documents, information disclosure, and filing. The relevant departments at all levels must issue policy documents concerning peasant burdens to sign the peasant burden supervision department of the people's government at the same level. Comprehensively implement the review system for rural infrastructure construction projects. The construction projects implemented by departments at all levels should be invested by the government, must be put in place in full and on time, and must not be distributed to peasants and village-level organizations; those who need to raise funds from farmers must pass through the same The peasant burden supervision department of the people's government will review and prevent the transfer of burdens to village organizations and farmers. We will establish a management mechanism for farmers to participate in the construction of rural infrastructure projects and improve their democratic deliberative capacity and management. We will further improve the peasant burden supervision card system, update the content in a timely manner, and indicate the reporting of telephone calls to facilitate farmers' supervision and reflect problems. Establish and improve the peasant burden monitoring system, expand the scope of monitoring, improve the quality of monitoring, and provide scientific basis for government decision-making.

6. Strengthen the inspection and supervision of peasants’ burdens. The local people’s governments at all levels shall carry out annual inspections on the implementation of policies to reduce the burden on peasants’ burdens and the peasants’ burdens in the implementation of the policy of strengthening farmers, benefiting peasants, and supporting rich peasants. The results of the inspection shall be notified within the appropriate scope. The problem is to track and supervise. It is necessary to combine the actual situation, choose outstanding issues and focus areas to carry out special governance, strengthen governance measures, and ensure the effectiveness of governance. Relevant departments must strictly implement the departmental responsibility system for those who are in charge and who are responsible, conduct self-examination and self-correction in depth, and effectively solve the problem of aggravating the peasants’ burden on the system and the department. The relevant departments at the central and provincial levels should select more cities (prefectures), counties, and provincial and municipal authorities to select the counties and townships that have more problems, jointly implement peasant burdens, and supervise the development of governance plans. Outstanding problems, rectification within a limited period in place, and effectively prevent the rebound of regional and industry farmers' burdens. Increase the special auditing efforts involving peasants' fundraising and raising of funds, announce the audit results in a timely manner, and accept supervision from the peasants. The channels for peasants' burdens on petitions and visits should be further smoothed, and comprehensive coordination should be strengthened so as to solve key and difficult issues reflected in letters and visits.

VII. Severely investigating violations of rules and regulations involving farmers' interests. Intensify efforts to investigate and punish peasants' violations of laws and regulations, and repatriate various amounts collected from farmers, village-level organizations, and peasants' professional cooperatives for violating rules and regulations; The peasant labor service shall provide reasonable compensation to the peasants according to the local labor price standards; resolutely revoke documents and charging items and construction projects that were arbitrarily promulgated and set up involving the peasants’ burdens; and resolutely reduce the arbitrarily increased charging standards. Strict implementation of the peasant burden accountability system, in violation of policy provisions, increase peasant burdens or related to the implementation of the strong peasants, agriculture, agriculture and rich farmers policies related to the implementation of responsible personnel, in accordance with relevant provisions shall be seriously dealt with.

VIII.Strengthening the organization and leadership of the work of alleviating peasants' burdens Local people's governments at all levels must adhere to the work system of the principal leaders personally and responsible for the overall responsibility, strengthen organization and leadership, implement responsibilities at each level, and persist in the implementation of the "one-vote veto" system to reduce peasant burdens. Continuing to maintain a high pressure to ease the burden on peasants must not be paralyzed because of the abolition of the agricultural tax, and must not be lax with the increase in peasant income and the decline in the burden on peasants. It is necessary to improve the leading institutions for alleviating peasant burdens, strengthen team building, ensure work funds, and ensure the smooth implementation of farmers' burden supervision. It is necessary to strengthen investigation and study, timely grasp and appropriately solve new problems and new issues arising from the burden of agriculture in the overall planning of urban and rural development, and prevent the emergence of problematic and partial problems from turning into trends and overall problems. It is necessary to increase the propaganda and training of grassroots cadres, continuously improve the level of their rural policies, and enhance their service capabilities. Relevant departments must strengthen the supervision of all localities to ease the work burden on peasants and promptly report the results. The provincial people's governments must, in accordance with the requirements of this opinion, combine the actual conditions of the local area, and quickly formulate specific implementation opinions.

State Council Office April 17, 2012