BEIJING, March 7 (Xinhua) -- China's widening wealth gap is challenging the country's family planning efforts as its new-rich, seemingly privileged in an era when money talks, disdain the decades-old one-child policy to pay to have as many children as they like.

    The number of rich people and celebrities having more than one child is on a rapid increase, and nearly 10 percent of them even have three, according to a recent survey by the National Population and Family Planning Commission (NPFPC).

    When the family planning policy, which limits most urban couples to one child and most rural couples to two, was formulated in the 1970s, policy makers' biggest worry was rural violators, who, usually poor but driven by the traditional concept of "more sons, more blessings", would brave the fine to have more children than permitted.

    But now the country's nouveau riche who believe they can buy anything as long as they like are policy makers new headache.

    The government has raised the fines to rein in rich people's enthusiasm in having more children but so far has seen little effect, though in some provinces, the fine is even as high as six times that the local average annual income.

    To make it worse, the fine system's impotence to rich people and celebrities has triggered not only doubts on its validity but also public anger with rich violators' privilege.

    "While low-income families and ordinary people cannot afford the fines, rich people can and are ready to pay the money to have more babies. Then what's the use of the fine system? " Mei Xiubo, a deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, said on the sidelines of the ongoing NPC annual session that opened Monday morning.

    The lawmaker was echoed by sociologist Xia Xueluan with Beijing University.

    "Raising fines won't help solve the problem. On the contrary, it legalizes the violation," said Xia.

    "To ease public anger with the rich violators, the most important thing is to take effective measures to bridge the disparity of social wealth," Xia said.

    Apart from fines, other regulations of the family planning policy, which also encourages late marriages and late childbearing, are also losing its might in discouraging violations some 30 years after the policy was initiated.

    The stipulations that members of the Communist Party of China, government officials, and state or collective enterprise employees will face Party or administrative punishment in addition to fines seem to carry less weight now, as more people are self-employed or work for private or foreign businesses, Mei said.

    Some local governments are seeking to toughen punishments on rich and celebrity violators.

    In affluent eastern Zhejiang Province, the government is planning to disgrace rich and celebrity violators by exposing their cases besides fines.

    The National Population and Family Planning Commission recently said it is also considering blacklisting rich and celebrity violators on an official "bad credit" file, which can disqualify them for all awards and honors.

    The plan aims to discourage violations by public figures and rich people, who usually are "willing to pay fines, but don't wish to see their reputation tarnished", said Yu Xuejun, an official with the commission's policy department.

    The plan has received both applause and doubts.

    "How will the policy makers define the rich? With how much money can a person be called a rich man? And in what cases should violators be blacklisted and exposed? Will that infringe people's privacy?" NPC deputy Zhu Xuejun questioned the measure's feasibility and legitimacy.

    The "money for baby" privilege of the new-rich and celebrities, as well as governments' new moves to combat the trend, has triggered controversy on online forums.

    A recent online survey by the China Youth Daily showed that more than 60 percent respondents think that it is unfair for the rich to have more children. But many also questioned the proposed new moves.

    "How will the family planning commission prevent the rich competing for awards? Will that violate people's rights?" an anonymous netizen said.

    "People are equal in front of laws. Why some peasants and migrant workers who are paying fines to have more babies receive no public criticism?" another one said.

    Amid the contentions, officials admitted that the government currently has no effective way to tackle the problem.

    "We'll try various ways to gain their (rich people's) understanding and support to the family planning policy," Zhang Weiqing, minister in charge of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, said earlier this year.

    Since its implementation, the family planning policy has helped reduce the country's population by 400 million and had delayed the present 1.3 billion population mark by four years. Authorities have said on many occasions that the policy won't be changed.