Japanese Prime Minster Yoshihiko Noda said on Saturday that the government planned to spend more than 1,000 billion yen (about 12.23 billion U.S. dollars) in decontaminating the area affected by last year's nuclear accident.

Noda told foreign media at the Japanese premier's office that a great part of the money would be channelled to decontaminate the residential areas surrounding the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. The effort was aimed at early returning the normal life of the quake-hit people. "Beginning in April, the government will do its utmost to phase out warnings on part of the no-entry zones," the Japanese prime minister said.

When answering a question from Xinhua, Noda said the government would take further steps with regard to the transparency of the nuclear accident information.

According to Noda, reconstruction plan had been worked out for about 80 percent of the quake-hit area. "Food safety and the health of the quake victims are the priorities of the government in reconstruction," Noda said.

But decontamination, which is vital to the reconstruction, is believed to be a daunting task for Noda and the central government, which is in charge of decontaminating the no-entry and expanded evacuation zones surrounding the troubled plant.

According to a report by the Daily Yomiuri on Saturday, locations have still not been chosen for intermediate storage facilities to hold up to 28 million cubic meters of contaminated soil.