Chinese officials being grilled on live TV

Beijing, Sep 2 (IANS) Facing public grilling on live television can be a tough experience for officials, but some Chinese local governments think it might be an effective measure to improve government work.

Many local governments have recently launched series of live TV shows in which officials answer questions from an audience, Xinhua reported Sunday.

The live TV shows were initiated in Wuhan, capital of the central Hubei province, in 2010. It has been adopted in Hunan, Henan and Hainan this year.

Yuan Hua, deputy party secretary in Chuzhou in the eastern Anhui province, said it was the first time he answered such detailed and sensitive questions on live TV.

Yuan, also the director of an under-construction industrial park with an investment of over 100 billion yuan (around $16 billion), was asked how the government will re-house the 1,400 households displaced by the project and what will it do to prevent corruption and ensure fairness.

"This requires us to better carry out our work, to have a thorough understanding of problems, and to think maturely about solutions to the problems. Facing the public directly allows not a scrap of negligence," he said.

During the TV show, Yuan spoke about the progress of the project and revealed a timetable and how it was being supervised.

An Guoling, an official with the local government of Chuzhou, said that for questions that cannot be solved on the spot during the show, officials have to give written replies within a certain time.