Starting on Thursday, Zhejiang province's Hangzhou city will stop charging residents for basic funeral services, becoming the country's first city to provide practically free cremations.

Free services include transportation, storage and cremation of the body, along with one year of ash storage, a notice issued by the local civil affairs department said.

Other costs, such as the purchase of urns, will only be exempted for those living below the local poverty line, it added.

The program, funded by the local government, mainly targets locals with hukou, or residency permits. But it will also cover active military personnel and registered university students who live in Hangzhou, as well as migrant workers who have worked in the city for at least a year, Hangzhou Daily reported on Wednesday.

"The program will benefit many people, including those without a local hukou, and will guarantee more respect in life and after death," said a Hangzhou civil affairs department director, who declined to disclose his name.

Recent national media coverage revealed that, in some parts of China, the poor could not even afford their own funerals. State-owned companies are responsible for funeral services.

Hangzhou came under the spotlight during the debate after the media picked up on the story of a migrant couple who were unable to claim their only child's ashes, because they could not afford the 3,000 yuan ($441) urn they were required to purchase.

OOn average, cremation costs 1,000 yuan on the mainland. Many providers profit from selling urns and cemetery plots at high mark-ups, the media have reported.

The Ministry of Civil Affairs pledged in early April to regulate the industry and gradually provide citizens free funeral and interment services nationwide.

Cremation has been widely promoted in China since the 1950s and accounts for nearly half of interments nationwide, according to the green book on the country's funeral development issued by the ministry.

In 2008, Beijing began offering free services to residents who wished to bury their deceased family members at sea, as the capital's cemetery space is inadequate.

Last year, 481 families chose the sea internments, more than twice the 2008 figure, Beijing's civil affairs bureau said.

By Shan Juan