Regional Development Minister Igor Slyunyayev held a meeting of the crisis centre of the interdepartmental working group to sum up the results of the activities of deputy ministers in federal districts aimed at preventing an increase in prices for housing and utilities services.
Onsite monitoring showed that out of 49 Russian regions listed in the original report, a rise in prices for housing and utilities services as of January 1, 2013 was registered in 42 regions.
Increased prices for heating was registered in 15 Russian regions. A maximum level was fixed in the Chelyabinsk Region (169%), the Leningrad Region (160%), St Petersburg (135%) and the Kamchatka Territory (132%). The main reason is an increase in the consumption norm, primarily due to the shift to the system of payment for services during the heating period.
Prices for hot water supply rose in 15 Russian regions. The largest increases were in the Krasnodar Territory (150%), the Novosibirsk Region (142%) and the Jewish Autonomous Region (132%).
Cold water supply prices grew in 16 regions after the norms were changed. The largest increases were registered in the Amur Region (223%), the Karachayevo-Circassian Republic (148%) and the Novosibirsk Region (143%).
In all the regions where prices grew, measures were taken to reduce them and to reassess the payments.
The interdepartmental working group has drafted amendments into the Housing Code that set minimum and maximum possible price change indexes. This was done following the President’s directive that the maximum total payment by citizens for housing and utilities services should not exceed 6% in one year.
Changes to a number of Government resolutions have been drafted that require that Russian regions set the norms of consumption before prices have been approved. The amendments are targeted at improving measures for social support of citizens.
Regional Development Minister Igor Slyunyayev ordered the interdepartmental working group to continue work until the end of 2013. Citizens' payments for housing and utilities services from July 1, 2013, when the planned price improvement will take place, and from September 1, 2013, when the heating period will begin, should be taken under special control.
The Minister instructed that reports on the situation regarding payments for housing and utilities services in all federal districts should be provided by the fifth day of each month. Apart from changing payments, special attention in these reports should be paid to installing in Russian regions private and general-purpose metres, creating heat and water supply schemes, approving consumption norms and applying adjusting factors regarding dilapidated buildings, implementing investment programmes in the housing and utilities sector, and to the situation regarding the registration of rights for housing and utilities facilities and land plots under them.
