Adding to earlier criticisms over costs and other issues, at least one proposal for scaling down the showcase program is due to be presented to a top advisory group meeting in Beijing this week during the annual session of China’s National People’s Congress, a state media report said Wednesday.
Critics of the high-speed railways expansion say ticket costs are too high and the services do not really meet the needs of average travelers in many areas. The corruption probe has further discredited the program.
“Railway development plans should be more down to earth and take into account what people really need,” the Shanghai Daily cited Wu Youying, who heads the Shanghai branch of the China Public Interest Party, as saying.
High-speed trains are too expensive and traffic on some lines is slack due to the mismatch between supply and demand in some areas, said Wu, a member of the advisory body the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Congress.
Wu could not immediately be reached for comment.
The corruption investigation has toppled Railways Minister Liu Zhijun amid allegations of so-far unspecified “severe violations of discipline.” Reports in the financial news magazine Caixin Media and other local media say the allegations involve kickbacks, bribes, illegal contracts and sexual liaisons — no Chinese scandal is complete without allegations of such personal peccadilloes.
Dismissals of top Communist Party officials are rare, since they can damage the party’s credibility among a public already jaded by widespread graft. But the current leadership has sought to burnish its image with various cleanup campaigns.
Premier Wen Jiabao, in online chat comments over the weekend, reiterated the party’s determination to pursue wrongdoing, even at the highest levels.
In the latest development in the railways scandal, Zhang Shuguang, an engineer in charge of research and development of the country’s high-speed railways, was also removed for alleged but unspecified severe disciplinary violations, the official Xinhua News Agency announced late Tuesday.
