Many Beijing residents are buying a grave in neighboring Hebei province as the cost of a grave in Beijing has soared in recent years to 15 times their rate in 2003. The government should provide low-cost graves in urban areas, says an article in Beijing News. Excerpts:

The Ministry of Civil Affairs should hear people's appeals and not only provide more public cemeteries but also ensure they are genuinely affordable for urban citizens.

According to the regulations issued by the ministry in 1992, there are indeed a large number of public welfare cemeteries, but these are mainly located in rural areas, while the cemeteries that enable urban residents to bury ashes or remains are usually commercial enterprises. If local governments "strictly" follow the document, commercial cemeteries with inflated prices would be everywhere in some cities.

Such institutional design has on the one hand distorted the original positioning of urban public welfare cemeteries and on the other hand made the administrative departments monopolize the supply of commercial cemeteries.

To eradicate the phenomenon, the civil affairs ministry should strictly implement government pricing and return the non-profit positioning of urban cemeteries. Also, the monopoly of government-funded enterprises in the funeral industry should be broken up. The government should put the emphasis on urban public welfare cemeteries first and then commercial ones.

It is clear that the government has the obligation to provide public welfare cemeteries to urban residents and to break up the existing monopoly of commercial cemeteries. The management system established two decades ago needs to be reformed on the basis of the present situation.