The government of Northwest China's Shaanxi province recently launched the country's largest-scale resettlement project since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, planning to invest 123 billion yuan ($18.94 billion) to relocate nearly 2.8 million people –twice as large as the population of Three Gorges Resettlement Project, the weekly News China magazine reported Thursday in its latest issue.

The provincial government formally launched the project on May 6, 2011, planning to displace more than 2.79 million residents in next 10 years, 2.4 million from southern Shaanxi and the rest from the northern Baiyu Mountain area - one of the three poorest mountain areas in the province.

Such an ambitious project comes out of the provincial government's determination to free the people in the disaster-prone southern Shaanxi from the frequently catastrophic natural disasters that have plagued the local residents for years, said Liu Zilong, deputy director general of the local poverty alleviation bureau, News China said.

More than 2,000 geologic disasters hit southern Shaanxi from 2001 to 2010, leaving about 590 people dead or missing and causing an economic loss of 45 billion yuan.

However, about half of the 2.4 million people living in southern Shaanxi province are targeted as part of a poverty relief program.

"We are sure that we can fulfill our goal and the government will keep the promise," the provincial governor Zhao Zhengyong said at a mobilizing meeting in Ankang city of Shaanxi province on May 6.

In fact, there are some tough obstacles ahead for such a huge and expensive project, such as the shortage of capital and land.

For the resettlement investment plan in southern Shaanxi, for instance, among the designed investment-77.22 billion yuan-used to help build new house in the resettled areas, as much as 71.59 billion yuan have to be raised by the residents themselves.

"Actually, the villagers have to pay the main part of the cost," said one villager.

To resettle the population, the government has to allocate enough land for them, but how do they squeeze land suitable for living and farming from the region of southern Shaanxi, which does not have abundant land resources, said a geological expert.

To solve that problem, the official in charge of the project hopes to receive support from the central government.