ON MAY 10, Yishui county in East China's Shandong province introduced a new policy according to which there will be no funeral charges for people who die in their hometowns. Xinhua Daily Telegraph comments:

In most parts of the country, by selling one cremation urn, undertakers can make a profit of up to 50 percent. For those buried in public cemeteries, the management companies will charge the families of the deceased a "management fee" that's effective for just 20 years and threaten to "discard" the remains of the deceased if the families fail to continue paying 20 years later.

The root problem lies in the double identity of funeral parlors. Theoretically, they are subsidiaries of the local civil affairs authorities, but in reality they are commercial agencies that monopolize the market.

By making all funeral services free of charge for the families of those who die in their hometowns, Yishui has brought funeral parlors back to their proper role of providing a public service.

The local government of Yishui said it has invested about 20 million yuan ($2.9 million) in the reform. Some argue that Yishui has ample financial revenue to support the move. But the fact is, Yishui is not a rich county. Its 2016 general public revenue was only 2.3 billion yuan, less than many counties in the more developed regions.

We hope the local governments in developed provinces and regions will follow Yishui's pioneering example. We do not mean that every city must necessarily exempt all funeral fees, but at least they could regulate the funeral parlors in one way or another to prevent them from seeking excessive profits in the market.