Tibetan Review
May 8, 2009

The Chinese government at Beijing is to spend 321 million yuan during 2008-2009 to "help" settle 12,628 nomadic households in Gannan (Tibetan: Kanlho) Prefecture of Gansu Province in permanent brick houses, reported China’s Xinhuanet news service May 6.

It said the project’s first phase will cost 80 million yuan will help settle 3,140 households while 241 million yuan will be spent in the second phase to settle down another 9,488 households. The report said the prefectural government would respect the Tibetan people's traditional lifestyle of being nomads while quickening ecological migration.

However, the project, implemented across the Tibetan Plateau, remains controversial both as regards the purpose and the effects on the settled down Tibetans.