BEIJING, Aug. 4 (Xinhua) -- Nearly 90 percent Chinese feel positive about the country's first regulations on the punishment for breaking disciplines on handling public complaints, according to a latest survey.

    The survey, conducted by the China Youth Daily last week and published on Sunday, shows that 89.2 percent of those polled backed the regulations, saying they would bring about changes to the work of handling complaints and "an important step in improving the work of settling petition letters and calls".

    The Provisional Regulations on the Punishment for Breaking Disciplines on Handling Letters and Calls, the country's first statute regarding responsibilities on the issue of handling public complaints, took effect on July 24 and requires timely and appropriate settlement of public grievances.

    Decision makers who have seriously infringed people's interests and caused protests, confrontations between people and the police and even riots by violating laws, regulations and policies will be held responsible. Leading officials may be held responsible for failure to handle public petition letters and calls promptly, according to the regulations.

    Nearly half those polled, or 47.5 percent, said letters and calls to the authorities were an effective channel to have problems solved, while 40.6 percent said there might be uncertainties and 11.9 percent showed their disapproval, according to the survey, which polled 3,204 people across the country.

    The department for letters and calls at various levels functions as a place to collect and report public grievances, and the settlement of problems remains the duty of decision-makers, said Sun Boying, Professor at Renmin University of China in Beijing.

    However, a great number of Chinese still resort to petitions to have their problems solved, according to Zhang Enxi, the State Bureau for Letters and Calls (SBLC) deputy head.

    Unbalanced power division between citizens and authorities made letters and calls important channels for ordinary people to voice grievances, as resorting to the law was often too expensive for poor people, the China News Service quoted an anonymous commentator on Monday.

    He suggested that petition organs in local government should come under the direct rule of provincial bureaux or SBLC and advised local government petition departments to provide legal aid instead of explaining policies and waiting for the feedback of decision-makers.

    Leaders' corruption and violation of laws and regulations, enterprise reform, labor insurance and social security fund, and issues related to agriculture and farmers were found to be the three problems that attracted the widest attention, accounting for74.5 percent, 66.1 percent and 57.9 percent respectively, according to the survey.

    The public also has high expectations that the system to punish leading officials held responsible for failure to handle public letters and calls be perfected, more transparency on the work of receiving petitions and incorporate petition rules and regulations into the Chinese legal system, according to the survey.

    It was a centuries-old tradition for Chinese to travel to local government or the national capital to seek intervention by higher authorities in disputes. After the Communist Party of China (CPC) came to power in 1949, a nationwide petition-handling system was established to guarantee this right.

    China publicized revised regulations on petitions in 2005, aiming to step up the protection of petitioners' rights and penalize those who fail to solve people's complaints.

    Apart from visiting the central complaints bureau and its subsidiaries across China, people can now file complaints through the "Internet petition" network being built across China and the hotline services of specially assigned telephone number 12345.