BEIJING -- More than 52 billion yuan ($7.9 million) is expected to be injected into the South-to-North Water Diversion Project this year, the largest ever since the ambitious plan was kicked off eight years ago but delayed due to complicated issues.

E Jingping, top official at the office in charge of the program's construction under the State Council, announced at a conference on Thursday (Feb 24) that, in 2011, authorities will pour a record 52 billion yuan into the project, with maximum investment to exceed 60 billion yuan.

Of the fund, 33 billion yuan will be earmarked for projects in the eastern and central routes to be launched this year, with the rest to be spent on speeding up the shift of some 190,000 people slated to make way for the new water canals of the central route.

Most of them are in Central China's Hubei and Henan provinces.

To achieve the goal set for this year, E (an uncommon family name in China, most popular in Hubei province) made it clear that local authorities should have ensured engineering progress in full sail, keep an eye on quality control, bring investment under effective control and resolve key technological problems facing the project such as swelling soil.

Also known as dilative soil or expensive soil, the problem potentially endangers up to 357 kilometers of the planned open water supply channel, or one-third of the total the central route has to go across in central China.

In the eastern route, authorities must improve water pollution control with water quality in all sections reaching grade III, the minimum standard for drinking water after being treated.

Water quality of Danjiangkou Reservoir, which will feed the main central route and areas upstream, should be up to the grade II the government set for surface water.

E urged local authorities to team up with other related authorities to deal with possible conflicts of interest as the vast water diversion project has been in "the most critical period of its construction".

The construction of the first phase of the water diversion is at risk.

Over the past eight years, only 33 individual projects out of 155 were completed, with 31 others failing to start work as scheduled, sources with E's office disclosed.

It meant that only about one-third of the phase's total investment was realized, with the remaining two-thirds having to be completed in the three years ahead.

As the world's largest water-diversion project, the project is to take water from the water-rich Yangtze River in the South to satisfy the growing demand in the parched North, including metropolises such as Beijing, Tianjin and scores of other drought-prone cities through its three routes - the eastern, central and western water diversion channels, each stretching over 1,000 km.

The first phase of the two routes has been under construction since 2002 and 2003, with the last one still on the drawing board.

Years later, their construction has been bogged down due to issues surrounding investment and complicated economic and social factors such as rising prices.

As a result, the planned completion of the first stage of the eastern and central routes was pushed back to 2013 and 2014, respectively, after it became clear that the earlier deadlines of 2010 and 2008 could not be met.

Since then, the plan has been pushed onto the fast track again, with construction in many branch sections getting into full swing. Last year, work was started on 40 delayed individual projects, with 48 billion yuan of investment involved, while the resettlement program and water pollution control, two of the decisive factors for the success of the vast water diversion project, were also pushed forward.

Last year, some 149,000 people, or 43 percent of the total slated to make way for the enlarged Danjiangkou Reservoir area, were resettled, while water quality in 83 percent of the sections the authorities have surveyed along the eastern route were reportedly up to standards, according to insiders.