BEIJING - Discipline regulatory agencies across the country should step up their efforts against corruption and improve supervision, a senior anti-graft official said here Wednesday.

He Guoqiang, head of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), made the remarks at a meeting with several newly-appointed heads of local discipline regulatory agencies.

They were urged to understand and implement the guidelines reached at the CCDI plenary session that closed Tuesday.

At the session, Hu Jintao, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, called for the strict implementation of Party discipline amid Party committee elections as well as the maintenance of the purity of the Party spirit.

Discipline regulatory agencies should assume the role of educating and supervising Party officials as well as punishing badly behaved Party members so as to maintain the purity of CPC members, said He, who is also a member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau.

They should help senior officials improve their working style and step up investigations into cases of corruption, he said.

They should also work out more efficient ways to prevent and curb corruption in CPC organs and governments, he said.

In 2011, a total of 4,843 Chinese officials above the county head level were punished for discipline violations in 2011, among whom 777 have been handed over to authorities for prosecution.