Govt urged to disclose transit card deposits

BEIJING -- Public transport card deposits have become a huge topic on China's social media sites, after three lawyers called for more transparent regulations regarding the card deposit fund.

The lawyers, from Jiangsu and Henan provinces as well as Beijing, sent a letter to the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council last week, urging the government to better regulate deposited money and disclose the whereabouts of the funds, which could amount to astronomical figures and generate huge interest every year.

"The details of this fund have not been publicized despite repeated requests from citizens and members of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, which infringed on the public's right to know and undermined the credibility of urban transport sector," the lawyers said in the letter.

The public transportation card, a kind of integrated circuit card issued by card companies under local governments, was introduced on a large scale in 2006 in major cities including Beijing and Shanghai.

Data showed that the country had issued more than 180 million transport cards and the total deposits were estimated between 1.8 billion yuan ($285.71 million) and 5.4 billion yuan.

In Beijing alone, around 40 million public transport cards had been issued as of May 2011, which meant that 800 million yuan in deposits has been collected.

"The public have the right to know who is managing the deposit fund, how the money has been invested and how about the returns?" read one post on Sina Weibo, China's most popular Twitter-like service.

"I strongly support the lawyers' move. As the deposit fund earns hefty interest each year, local governments should release the details of the fund in a timely manner," a netizen surnamed Xue wrote in an entry on Sina Weibo.

Internet users also asked governments to publicize the cost of each card as the deposit required to have one varies from 10 yuan to 30 yuan in different cities.

Since 2009, some citizens in Beijing, Guangzhou, Jinan, Hefei and Nanjing complained about the obscure regulations regarding transport card deposits and asked relevant government departments to disclose information about the deposited money.

According to one regulation issued by the Ministry of Finance and the People's Bank of China in 2001, the management of public transport cards' deposit funds should be formulated by provincial-level governments.

However, only two cities, Fushun in northeast China's Liaoning province and Xiamen in eastern Fujian province have formulated card deposit management methods.

The lawyers said they will keep on going despite various obstacles they may encounter. "We will not give up until the government publicize the management of the card deposits," said Wang Yu, one of the three lawyers.

The government should fix regulatory loopholes by formulating deposit management methods as soon as possible, in order to win people's trust on the public transport sector, said Wang Shichuan, a media commentator.