China will start paying pensions to monks and nuns in its Tibetan areas, the official Xinhua news agency said Thursday, after a run of self-immolations by Buddhist clergy protesting religious repression.

Beijing has come under mounting international criticism over its treatment of Tibetan Buddhists in recent months, with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calling on China to "embrace a different path".

Eleven monks and nuns have set fire to themselves this year in what rights groups say is a sign of the desperation felt by Tibetan Buddhists in China, where some have been subjected to religious "reeducation" and even torture.

China, which has invested heavily in development in its ethnically Tibetan regions, maintains that it has brought modernisation and a better standard of living.

On Thursday, Xinhua said that from next year, monks and nuns over the age of 60 in Tibetan-inhabited regions would receive 120 yuan (about $19) a month in retirement pay.

Beginning next year, they will also be able to buy basic medical insurance for 60 yuan a year, which will cover 50,000 yuan per person per year in medical expenses, it added.

Previously, many monks and nuns were not allowed to participate in a national social security programme currently being implemented at the township-level across the nation, press reports said.

"It's a major approach to improve Tibetan people's livelihood," Xinhua quoted Wu Yingjie, deputy Communist Party secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Region, as saying.

The move is aimed at protecting the rights of monks and nuns by extending public services to their monasteries, he said.

The scheme extends to southwest China's Sichuan province, where 11 Buddhist monks and nuns this year set themselves on fire in protest of China's rule over the region.

Rights groups have said at least seven of the suicide attempts have succeeded, reflecting the desperation Tibetans feel over China's encroachment of the region and its heavy-handed religious and cultural policies.

Last year, the People's Daily reported that there were 46,000 Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns in Tibet, with fewer than 3,000 of them over the age of 60.