I lingered a bit longer than usual before the newsstand across the street from my office building on Monday. Something extraordinary had caught my eye.

"Farewell GDP fetish!" proclaims the cover headline of the latest issue of China Newsweek magazine.

Having written extensively about the GDP cult (official pursuit of glowing GDP figures with quasi-religious fervor) in China and knowing all too well its pervasiveness, I was skeptical of the apparent conviction with which the magazine's editors predict the demise of the practice.

An important reason I doubt it will disappear anytime soon is that once it's cleansed from the official belief system, the vacuum won't be easily filled.

Consider the scenario where officials accustomed to GDP as the sole criterion of their capabilities suddenly lose this yardstick and idle away their time wondering what their superiors would expect of them instead.

The odds of doing away with the GDP cult hence hinge on the resourcefulness of policy makers to craft its healthy alternative.

That's where the "Happiness Index" comes in, although it as a mantra has been bandied about out of political expediency by governments at the local level.

In fact, before the joy yardstick stole the limelight at the ongoing sessions of the nation's congress and top political advisory body, some localities had long pledged to introduce the "Happiness Index" to counter the spell of the GDP cult.

Elusive standard

Due to media hype, "Happy Guangdong" has since caught on as a buzzword, though concrete developments are a long way off.

After the initial euphoria, officials will likely find it hard to endorse the "Happiness Index," as it's a tricky business to measure something so elusive and intangible as happiness or contentment with a single index.

While its algorithm is still being formulated, home and food prices, education, health care and cultural expenditures are expected to figure prominently in it.

This newspaper cited Lin Xianyu, a political adviser, on Monday as saying "there will always be a gap between popular hopes and hard reality."

True, but governments can narrow this gap by subsidizing, instead of showy projects, schemes that help those in dire financial straits.

It's commonly agreed that people of modest means tend to be happier than rich people if both are showered with the same largesse.

Shanghai wins kudos for raising its minimum wage from 1,120 yuan (US$170) to 1,280 yuan, effective April 1.

The city can win more kudos if it has the good will to extend such schemes to more people at a time of soaring costs of living.

Anyone with some training in monetary economics will know China's growth, though spectacular, has caused an ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor.

Rising inflation has wiped out modest gains accruing from the bank savings of poor households, enabling businessmen and speculators to obtain cheap loans. The money then gravitates to property and commodities markets - the two biggest sources of general unhappiness.

If the government does hope to spread the gospel of happiness, it should above all learn to be more accountable to the general populace, not the vested interests.

Wang Yang, Party chief of Guangdong, said at a National People's Congress meeting on Monday that "a capable official knows not how to sell land and build homes, but how to plant trees on reclaimed land." Well said. But are all Guangdong officials behaving the way he envisions?

To its credit, the city government of Guangzhou, the provincial capital, decided not to auction its greenery for commercial use, the Yangcheng Evening News reported on Tuesday.

Anecdotal evidence suggesting a contradictory approach, however, threatens to undermine respect for the greenery move.

When I visited Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, on a reporting assignment in mid 2010, I made friends with a fellow reporter from Guangzhou, who told me that the city's iconic Canton-style qi lou, buildings with their first floors overhung by extended upper stories perched on pillars, were being decimated to make way for fancier structures.

He marveled at the fact that much of Zhejiang has retained its ancestral past while modernizing itself.

Defining happiness

Even on the frontlines of the "happiness campaign," it appears that official grasp of happiness cannot be decisively separated from what GDP literally stands for in China - grand development projects.

Until this changes, expect me to carp on the sidelines when there's a groundswell of support for the "Happiness Index."

Making people happy is certainly a noble goal - much nobler than boosting GDP - but it should not be oversimplified into an impersonal "Happiness Index."

First you have to ask or define, for example, who "the people" are: honest farmers and workers, or slippery businessmen and bureaucrats? Pedestrians and cyclists, or drivers of gas-guzzlers?

On second thought, however, even if gross social injustices are rectified, bolstering people's happiness can still prove an uphill task. China is no stranger to this happiness deficit since it is global and even more severe in places where income disparities are relatively mild.

This requires the government to play a more proactive role in convincing people to rise above the mundane pursuit of money.

My friend's 70-something landlady fell seriously ill years ago upon learning that an apartment of 30 square meters she had sold for 290,000 yuan, at a profit of 220 percent, fetched over 500,000 yuan not long thereafter.

Living in solitude, the widow is spending the rest of her days regretting her financial short-sightedness. Greed ruined her happiness.

In his famous hierarchy of needs, American psychologist Abraham Maslow puts self-actualization at the top.

We cannot ask an septuagenarian to broaden her outlook on happiness to include self-actualization, but for those troubled young minds, the government may make a difference by admonishing them on the value of heeding simple Chinese wisdom "contentment brings eternal happiness."