BEIJING, Jan 17 (Reuters) - China must accelerate work on a huge canal to bring Beijing back-up water for the Olympic Games, a senior official said on Thursday, warning local officials to clear away problems slowing progress.

Beijing has vowed adequate water for its Olympics opening in August, when some 2 million visitors are expected to crowd in, straining limited supplies. But to avoid shortages, the capital has tapped adjacent Hebei province, which is even more parched.

Hebei has promised to ship some 300 million cubic metres of water from four dams through the South-to-North Water Transfer Project, which when fully finished will take water to northern China from the Yangtze River and tributaries along central and eastern routes.

The project as a whole is far from complete and plans to first finish the central route section in Hebei before Beijing's Olympic Games appear to be lagging behind schedule.

Now Zhang Jiyao, director of the South-North Water Transfer Project Construction Committee Office, has told officials to speed up work along Hebei's 300-km (190-mile) network of pipes and canals that begins near the city of Shijiazhuang.

"In project construction, the central route's Beijing-Shijiazhuang emergency water supply project (must) be able to send water before the Olympics," Zhang told a meeting on the project, according to a report on the Web site of the official People's Daily (www.people.com.cn).

Calling 2008 a "crucial year" for the project, Zhang urged officials to "improve project management levels" and "strive to create conditions for obstruction-free building".

"There cannot be major quality problems or accidents, and nor should any funds be misappropriated," Zhang said of the South-to-North project. The Hebei section along is budgeted to cost some 17.4 billion yuan ($2.3 billion).

The Hebei "emergency" section was originally scheduled to be ready to send water to Beijing by last year, but local media have said the goal is now April.

The project has drawn complaints from Hebei members of China's legislature, who have said that farmers and factories are not receiving enough compensation for giving up water for Beijing.

Hebei had just one-seventh of the national per capita water supply and was suffering from sinking water tables and widespread saline contamination, Xinhua news agency reported last year. (Reporting by Chris Buckley; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

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