About 2 lakh officials punished in China's frugality campaign

China's top anti-graft body has said that nearly two lakh Party and government staff have been punished for violating austerity rules since late 2012, a media report said today.
The ruling Communist Party of China's (CPC) central leadership launched a frugality campaign in December 2012, adopting the "eight-point rules", which aimed to curb extravagance and improve officials' work style.
The CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) said yesterday that about 196,947 party and government staff had been punished for violating austerity rules since late 2012.
The disciplined officials were involved in more than 146,400 cases in the past four years, about a quarter of which involved use of public vehicles and eating and drinking with public funds, it said.

Lavish weddings and funerals, public money spent on travel and gift-giving were also included in the violations.
CCDI statistics showed that 33,532 violations were reported from January to October in 2016, nearing the number of violations dealt with in 2015, state-run Xinhua news agency reported today.