Agenda: Draft federal laws, budgetary allocations.
Mikhail Mishustin’s opening remarks:
Good afternoon, colleagues.
Today, we are starting to pay new monthly benefits for children aged 8-17 years from low-income families. We have introduced these benefits as per the President’s instruction, and we havealready received over 2.5 million applications for 3.5 million children.
The benefits will either be delivered by Russian Post or will be remitted to the debit cards of parents who have applied via the government services website, integrated government services centres or the Pension Fund. This month, they will receive money for April and May.
Per-child monthly benefits will total 6,000 to 12,000 roubles on average. Their sum total is calculated according to each family’s situation and may total 50, 75 or 100 percent of regional subsistence minimums for children.
I would like to ask Tatyana Golikova and Anton Kotyakov to personally oversee the provision of these benefits. The entire process should be fast and people-friendly.
Mr Shadayev (addressing Maksut Shadayev), please see
to it that people do not experience interruptions when submitting their applications
via the government services website.
Another important decision: as per the President’s instruction, the Government will help the regions reduce their commercial debts, replace part of their bank loans, or repay their bond debts.
Rules for allocating low-interest loans to Russian regions this year have been approved towards this end.
The funds will be allocated at an extremely low annual interest rate of 0.1 percent, and for a long time, until 2028. These loans can be repaid in equal parts starting in 2025.
We believe that federal budgetary support can help the regions not only reduce their market loans but also debt servicing payments, which will free up funds for dealing with the most important issues, such as economic development, social programmes and infrastructure improvements.
Let us get down to today’s agenda. In late April, the Government extended for a year the deadline for the payment of insurance instalments by companies that supply goods and services to the domestic market. This large-scale support measure will help reduce the companies’ financial burden considerably. Businesses, including sole proprietors, will be able to save substantial funds, which they can use to pay wages or invest in development or modernisation.
To compensate for lost income, today we will allocate nearly 1.7 trillion roubles to the mandatory medical, pension and social insurance funds, so that they maintain stability, ensure the uninterrupted payment of pensions and allowances, and provide free medical assistance.
The state must continue to carry out its obligations to citizens in full.
The Government also continues to support employees of medical institutions who struggle every day to save the lives and health of each COVID-19 patient.
The President has come up with an initiative that envisions special insurance guarantees for doctors, junior and medium-level medical personnel, and ambulance drivers, if they fall ill themselves while treating patients.
This year, over 11 billion roubles in lump-sum payments has already been provided for this purpose. Today, we will allocate an additional sum of over 10.5 billion roubles to continue this benefit.
The important thing is that these funds are paid promptly.
We have one more item on our agenda today: the development of the infrastructure needed to preserve the unique ecosystem of Lake Baikal, primarily to ensure reliable protection from polluted wastewater. The President has set a task of assigning the necessary resources for this purpose.
Today, we will discuss a decision on supporting an overhaul of the right-bank purification facilities in Ulan-Ude, which were built back in the Soviet period and are heavily worn out at this point.
The three-year federal budget under the Environment national project already includes 4.1 billion roubles for this, but that is certainly insufficient. This year, we will increase the funding for this project up to 3.8 billion roubles. On the whole, we plan to allocate almost 8 billion roubles within the next three years.
This will allow for completing
the creation of the most advanced purification system within three years and
will change the ecological situation in the Lake Baikal area to help save it for
future generations.
