Safety and quality are the top priorities for China's transport infrastructure construction, the State Council said on Wednesday.

A strict mechanism for transport safety supervision and quality management should be established in coordination with the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15), according to a statement issued by the State Council, after an executive meeting presided over by Premier Wen Jiabao.

The mechanism should cover every stage of the construction from planning, design and construction to operation, it said.

Efforts should be made to advance technology and improve equipment, it added.

The meeting, which discussed and adopted the 12th Five-Year Plan for building a comprehensive transport system, also agreed that transport infrastructure can be "moderately advanced", and private investment is encouraged in the infrastructure construction.

China aims to form a comprehensive transport network by 2015, which has five east-west arteries and five north-south arteries as the backbones.

The national high-speed railway network and the national expressway network are both expected to take shape during the period. The civil aviation network is expected to further expand.

Around the country, there will be 42 national comprehensive transport hubs under the plan.

The emphasis on safety and quality at the State Council's executive meeting is in response to growing public worries over the safety of the country's sprawling transport network.

Last year, 40 people were killed and nearly 200 injured in a train crash in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province. After a thorough investigation, the State Council concluded that serious design flaws in the control equipment used at Wenzhou South Railway Station and sloppy management caused the crash.

Media reported last week that the ground subsided under a stretch of a high-speed rail line between Wuhan and Yichang, which is set to open in May. Concerns were raised over the railway's safety after an earthwork supplier disclosed that the builder did not consolidate the railway foundation as designed.

Yang Hao, a professor specializing in transport at Beijing Jiaotong University, said that problems mainly exist in the supervision of the construction process and construction quality, as well as in railway operation management.

"In the past, railway operation relied on human management," he said. "That's not enough now. It's time to install more high-tech equipment to assist the management of railway operation."

The meeting also discussed and passed the 12th Five-Year Plan for the national project on safe drinking water in rural areas.

Further efforts are required to guarantee the safety of drinking water for the 298 million rural residents and 114,000 rural schools, while supplying 80 percent of the rural areas with water.

The project should have an overall plan, taking all factors into consideration, the statement said, adding that priority should be given to improve the quality of water that has seriously affected people's health and tackling the water shortage in certain areas.

However, taking into consideration the actual conditions of an area, local government can carry out a gradual implementation by installing scattered water supply facilities in some areas instead of covering the whole rural region with centralized ones, the statement said.

A prevention and governance system for water quality is also necessary to curb water pollution.

The conference also emphasized the importance of encouraging the participation of farmers while promoting water conservation.