Center: A resident heats water on a coal-burning stove. Photo: VCG

The Ministry of Ecology and Environment of China called for local governments to manage coal usage according to regulations and laws after a local government reportedly blocked up families' stoves with cement to forcibly prevent them from using coal for heating in winter.

People should be the center and people's livelihood should be the bottom line in government management of coal usage, officials of the ministry stressed at a press conference on Thursday. 

The comments came after the village committee of Nanying in Linfen, North China's Shanxi Province, was reported to conduct compulsory measures - blocking stoves with cement - to block families from using coal in stoves for cooking and winter heating.

The committee claimed that the action was taken in response to Linfen city's 2019 implementation of a special remediation plan for bulk coal pollution, which was released in September.

The policy bans the use of coal in some areas of the city, including the Nanying village, and requires authorities in those areas to remove coal stored by local residents and to dispose highly polluting fuels.

Villagers are angry about the local government's directives and have complained about the high cost of using natural gas in winter despite government subsidies.

"In the past, heating with coal cost nearly 1,000 yuan ($142) a winter, while using natural gas for heating will double or even triple that cost," villagers told CNR.

Nanyang is not an isolated case. Similar problems have arisen elsewhere since China started the coal-to-gas project in 2013 due to local governments' stringent directives, especially in northern China.

According to media reports, six villagers have died from carbon monoxide poisoning this winter in Tangshan, Hebei, after they started to use clean coal but did not use stoves specially designed for this kind of coal.

Experts point out that even though the government has been promoting clean coal, there are no set standards for the production of this kind of coal and producers have failed to offer guidelines to consumers on how to safely use the coal, which has led to many problems.

"Some officials might be in a little bit of a rush to fulfill the environmental protection plans without taking everything into account, therefore problems arise," Zhou Dadi, a researcher at the Energy Research Institute of the Development and Reform Commission, told the Global Times on Monday, noting that the implementation of the coal-to-gas policy should not disregard the difficult conditions put on households when required to make the change.

The National Energy Bureau issued a document in July regarding resolving relevant issues in the process of promoting clean energy, which prohibits local governments from taking "one-size-fits-all" measures to have households switch from coal to gas.