A man surnamed Zhou shows his seven-year-old son's ID card on April 1. [Photo/zjol.com.cn]

The Zhejiang Provincial Department of Public Security announced that from April 1, residents from Hangzhou, Wenzhou, Taizhou, and Shaoxing, who are applying for identity cards for the first time, can complete the process at any police station in Zhejiang without having to go back to the location of their household registration.

A seven-year-old boy surnamed Zhou was the first person to benefit from the new policy. Zhou, accompanied by his father, went to the Caihe police station in Jianggan district, Hangzhou on March 27, where he finished the routine procedures of identity verification, photo-taking, fingerprint taking, and information check, obtaining his ID card via free EMS delivery on April 1.

"The new policy has freed us from driving 600 kilometers back to our hometown in Wenzhou, which is really convenient," said Zhou's father.

The father said that his family has been doing business in Hangzhou for years and his son has also been studying in the city. The new policy solved his problem of the ID card being needed for many school activities and his son having to go to cram school on weekends.

The policy is currently in pilot operation in Hangzhou, Wenzhou, Taizhou, and Shaoxing. It will be fully implemented in all parts of Zhejiang in mid-April.

It is expected that the new policy will benefit more than 500,000 first-time ID card applicants in Zhejiang province every year.