This year, efficient measures such as comfortable housing projects and comprehensive agricultural development projects will be implemented among rural areas in Tibet with an investment of 413.8 million yuan (65.5million U.S. dollars) for poverty alleviation funds and over 4,000 development projects.

Tibet will step up poverty reduction and improve infrastructure in poor areas, according to the Office of Poverty Reduction and Agriculture Development of Tibet.

The region will also try to increase its overall agricultural production capacity and the income of farmers and herders, an official said.

At the beginning of 2012, the office has just planned to invest over 17 billion(2billion U.S. dollars) yuan to improve the infrastructure in rural areas in 2012, including water supplies, power supplies, traffic and communications.

Tibet to build 42,000 subsidized housing units in 2011-2015

Tibet plans to build 42,000 subsidized housing units in the 2011-2015 period. Tibet is expected to invest about 2.22 billion yuan (about 348.98 million U.S. dollars) of capital from both the central and local governments, said Wang Yalin, head of the regional department of housing and urban-rural development.

In the 2011-2015 period, Tibet will prioritize setting up the multi-level housing security system, which includes subsidized housing, low-rent housing, public rental housing and affordable housing, to meet both urban and rural housing needs, he said.

By the end of October, the construction of 15,500 units of subsidized housing will be underway.

Since 2007, Tibet has invested over 1.1 billion yuan in building 10,800 low-rent housing units.

Rural pension system extended to 2 mln Tibetan farmers, herdsmen

China's pilot rural pension system covers the entire Tibet Autonomous Region, benefiting more than 2 million farmers and herdsmen, accordingt to the regional government official.

The government-subsidized scheme, which began in November 2009 in seven of Tibet's counties, cities and districts, had been extended to all 73 counties, cities and districts by November last year, said a spokesman with the region's human resources and social security department at the annual regional people's congress session.

The scheme included a basic pension and individual accounts, the official said.

Every rural Tibetan resident aged 60 or over received 55 yuan (8.3 U.S. dollars) a month as a basic pension, and the amount would increase in accordance with social and economic development.

Residents aged 16 to 59 with personal accounts, which included personal payments, village subsidies, social funding, government allowances and interest, could choose to pay 100 to 500 yuan annually for 15 consecutive years to increase their pensions after turning 60.

Rural Tibetan children offered free bilingual preschool education

Children in Tibet's agricultural and pastoral areas will receive at least two years of free preschool education in both the Tibetan and Mandarin languages.

The Tibet Autonomous Regional government would extend preschool education both in the urban and rural areas in the next five years, according to a report by the Tibet education bureau presented to the annual session of the regional people's congress.

By 2015, every small town in Tibet would have a central kindergarten and every village would have at least a preschool class in its primary school. Remote regions would have seasonal or mobile kindergartens

As most families in farming and pastoral areas lived far from educational facilities, the government would build boarding kindergartens and cover all the costs of children's tuition, board and lodging.

According to the plan, by 2015, at least 60 percent of Tibetan children would attend kindergarten. Each town would have a model kindergarten.