China's Ministry of Environmental Protection has launched special supervision programs for 15 companies that have failed to meet pollution reduction requirements set in a national pollution control plan.

These companies are ordered to correct their practices before a specified deadline, Tao Detian, a spokesman for the ministry, said on Monday.

A total of seven sewage disposal plants in Tianjin, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Jiangsu, Henan, Guangxi and Xinjiang were placed in the supervisory program for deactivating their sewage disposal systems without good reason, as well as excessive discharges of polluted water.

If the plants fail to follow the order, environmental authorities will suspend their review and approval of new industrial projects in the cities where the plants are located, Tao said.

In addition, the ministry will supervise and punish eight power plants in Inner Mongolia, Jiangsu, Henan, Hunan, Guangdong, Sichuan and Gansu for fabricating data related to emission monitoring, Tao said.

The ministry also announced on Monday that China has met two of the major pollution control targets that it set for the 2006-2010 period.

China's sulfur dioxide emission index, a main index used to measure air pollution, dropped 14.29 percent in 2010 in comparison to its level in 2005, the ministry said.

The Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) index, a measure of water pollution, decreased by 12.45 percent over the same period, the ministry said.

China's 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2010) called for reducing COD and sulfur dioxide levels by 10 percent over the period.

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