In a bid to curb a "significant rise" in the rate of defective births over the past few years, Guangdong municipal authorities may soon offer free pre-marital health checkups for couples across the province.

Until 2003, pre-marital physical checks were mandatory across the country.

But earlier this year, a number of delegates to the provincial people's congress proposed the authorities offer the checkups free of cost across Guangdong to encourage more couples to undergo certain physical tests before tying the knot.

Governments of almost all the cities, including the provincial capital Guangzhou, in the affluent Pearl River Delta area started offering free of charge health checks for soon-to-be-married couples in 2007.

Zhang Lanying, one of the delegates, said "7.4 percent of the couples in the province's cities opted for pre-marital health checks in 2007", compared with 4.6 percent in 2006, 3.2 percent in 2005 and 3.6 percent in 2004.

In 2003, when such checkups were mandatory, 61 percent of the couples underwent physical examinations before getting married.

In rural areas, the rate dropped to 0.2 percent in 2007 from 26 percent in 2003, Zhang said, citing a survey jointly conducted by the provincial statistics bureau and working committee.

Defective births in the country shot up to 2.49 million in 2007 from 1.86 million in 2003.

Guangdong's health department, however, maintained the cost involved was not the reason couples avoided the checkups, but a "lack of awareness and plain laziness".

In Guangzhou, a pre-marital health checkup cost a mere 214 yuan ($31) in 2002. In 2007, when local authorities began offering the service free of cost, the municipal government budgeted 340 yuan per couple for the physical examination.