Wuhan - Nearly 140,000 people living in central China's Hubei and Henan provinces near the Danjiangkou Reservoir area will make way for the South-to-North Water Diversion (SNWD) project this year, securing the project's revised schedule for completion in four years.

A larger exodus for the project will be launched in the remaining years after construction.

The project was given a green light to go in to full swing later last year to alleviate chronic water supply shortage in the country's thirsty north, a senior official said on Wednesday.

Addressing a conference on the relocation scheme, Zhang Jiyao, chief of the SNWD project office under the State Council, made it clear that "from this year on, construction of the project is entering what he called 'a decisive battle’ for its scheduled completion."

It also meant a peak year for the project's massive and tough relocation, which has to be fully launched in the coming years beginning from this year to pave the way for the construction that was delayed for years.

The project drawing water from southern rivers for the country's dry north is the country's second largest resettlement plan involving 450,000 people following a similar move to pave the way for the Three Gorges Project, which involved a record 1.4 million people and lasted for 17 years.

The huge water diversion project will consist of eastern, central and western routes.

The central route of the project requires construction of an open-cut canal from Danjiangkou Reservoir on Hanjiang River, the largest tributary of the Yangtze River, to metropolises like Beijing and Tianjin and some other cities.

Construction had been bogged down due to issues surrounding investment and other economic and social factors such as rising prices.

The project is on fast track for completion by 2014. Its first phase has a budget of up to 254.6 billion yuan ($37.3 billion).

Of the 450,000 to be displaced, 340,000 of them will have to bid farewell to their hometowns around the Danjiangkou Reservoir where its dam has already been heightened to hold more water that would inundate their homes once it began to supply water for the North.

The amount of compensation, including placement subsidies, available to farmers will be about 16 times the combined value of the land lost and the average produce from that land during the past three years, experts say.

To date, up to 23,000 people have been relocated for the project as housing was ready for them since the pilot resettlement was kicked off to gain experience in 2008, according to Zhang's office.

Zhang said the central government spoke highly of the resettlement by local authorities because they worked out people-based policies for the process, which he believed would make the tough relocation a harmonious resettlement.

Even though, the resettlement still faces challenges from its long process as some bottlenecks remained unsolved including unbalanced housing process for the relocated, quality defect of the housing and long-lasting identification of the residents to be moved away.

To push forward the resettlement in Henan and Hubei provinces, the authorities have provided each of those slated to be displaced with a card with the state policies and local rules set for them printed in detail so people know their rights exactly.

He spoke highly of some experiences of the resettlement gained by the authorities in Jiaozuo, in Hehan province, where the government has taken the legitimate interests of the displaced as the foremost. "What they did should have been follow suit by authorities in other areas for the sake of the relocated," he said.

To make the resettlement a transparent process for the relocated, governments involved in the central route of the project have brought their entire resettlement under supervision control through special audit and inspection to prevent corruption from being caused.