Burden eased on grassroots civil servants

Editor's note: The General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee issued a notice on resolving the prominent problem of formalism to ease the burden on grassroots governments last month. China Daily reporter Li Yang comments:

It is noteworthy that the notice requires that documents issued to governments of county-level and below, and the meetings of these governments should be reduced by 30 percent to 50 percent, and local governments in most cases need not to make detailed implementation rules for every policy issued by the higher authorities.

The notice requires the higher authorities to reduce their inspections of grassroots governments and public institutes by half, and to abstain from asking for various kinds of reports from them at will.