A political advisor has urged the government to take strong measures to control administrative costs, saying a law against extravagance and waste may help reduce the waste of public resources.

Feng Pei'en, a member of China's top advisory body, is worried about the drastic increase of administrative expenditures in the country.

Annual administrative expenditures per capita have grown 24 fold from 1986 to 2005, and the growth rate is higher than that of the country's GDP per capita and fiscal income for the same period, according to Feng.

Feng made the remarks at a plenary meeting of the ongoing annual full session of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in the Great Hall of the People in downtown Beijing.

Feng blamed the surging costs on widespread lavish spending by public servants, which ranges from buying luxury cars to construction of luxury office buildings.

"Strong measures must be taken to bring administrative costs under control to meet the goal of building a conservation-minded government," Feng said.

To stop the unhealthy practice, Feng suggested a law on government information disclosure be delivered so that taxpayers can oversee government expenditures.

A law against extravagance would establish norms for the punishment of those found guilty of wasting public resources, he said.

In his report to Parliament on government work a week ago, Premier Wen Jiabao vowed to "deal with the serious problem of extravagance and waste in some government bodies."

"Quite a few local governments, government offices and organizations compete with one another for lavishness and spend money hand over fist, which arouses strong public resentment," Wen said.