BEIJING, Nov 5 (Reuter) - China has allocated 600 million yuan ($72.3 million) to improve primitive living conditions for its army along the border and in troubled western regions since 1993, the People's Daily newspaper said on Sunday.

The three-year project has financed permanent housing, running water, better food and electricity for army guards in the most remote border areas in the Himalayan region of Tibet and in westernmost Xinjiang as well as other frontiers, it said.

Before the start of the project, border guards living in the "sea of death" -- the deserts of remote Xinjiang -- as well as along China's western Himalayan borders were housed in tents despite sub-zero temperatures and ate canned meat and vegetables, the newspaper said.

Government money has funded dormitories and toilets while solar panels, water and wind power projects now provide camps with electricity in northwestern Xinjiang, which borders Kazakhstan, and in Tibet, Inner Mongolia and northeastern Heilongjiang province along the frontier with Russia, it said.

In one area where snow fell for 138 straight days and reached 1.2 metres (4 ft) high, local residents and soldiers did not eat fresh vegetables for 10 months. However, the funds paid for a greenhouse where border sentries now grow more than 10 varieties of vegetables and fruits, it said.

Improvements in living conditions for China's border guards come in tandem with plans to reduce the number of troops monitoring China's extensive borders. President Jiang Zemin recently announced plans to form a rapid reaction force to trim the cost of frontier security. China also uses troops posted in Tibet and Xinjiang to deter anti-Chinese uprisings that have rocked the two regions for years.