MOSCOW, February 13 (Itar-Tass) —— Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin urged to bring order in the housing and public utilities sector, particularly to set well-grounded and fair tariffs on the services of public utilities. The prime minister wrote so in an article, which is published in the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper on Monday.
“Today people pay already more than 90% from the so-called economically grounded tariff, but the public utilities continue to increase their tariffs. Meanwhile, the quality of many services from the cleaning of houses and neighbouring territories to the repair of the residential houses absolutely does not match their cost,” the prime minister stated.
“Regional and local authorities should provide people with qualitative utility services and should bear the real responsibility for the quality of their work,” he urged. “It can be done with budget allocations for the only one favourite company. It can be done with some efforts taken to make the housing and public utilities market in your city attractive for a large number of competing companies,” Putin noted.
To bring order in the housing and public utilities sector the prime minister called for “training courses to many citizens about the basics of legislation and economy in the housing and public utilities sector.” “It is necessary to support the formation of a network of public organizations, which assist residents to get together, protect their rights and control the fulfilment of the duties by the public utilities,” he believes.
“We will introduce the social consumption level of utility resources that will make the payment for them fairer,” the prime minister pledged. He also noted that, “meanwhile, it is important to develop compensating measures, so that elder people will not suffer, as they live alone in a big flat and if they live in it for more than ten years.”
Putin believes that “the solution to the tasks of modernization of the public utilities is to create favourable conditions to attract private investments in this industry.” “The task of private business in the housing and public utilities sector is to implement large-scale infrastructure projects, and not to make up for losses due to higher tariffs. The price of utility services will be set at least for three years to come, and the tariffs for this period of time will be calculated according to a simple formula, which will be clear for consumers and investors. The main thing is that the tariffs will depend from the quality and reliability of services,” Putin underlined.