“Izvestia”: “Car disposal facilities to open on Women’s day”
The first car disposal facilities will open on March 8, International Women's Day.
Yesterday, on the first workday after the holidays, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin held three working meetings at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence near Moscow. It may be assumed that their results will soon tell on Russians' everyday life and on the Russian economy as a whole. The Prime Minister discussed the heating season with Minister for Regional Development Viktor Basargin, the interaction between the government and business with President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs Alexander Shokhin, and the car disposal scheme with Minister of Industry and Trade Viktor Khristenko.
The widely advertised Cash for Cars programme will be launched on March 8, Mr. Putin said during his meeting with Khristenko. This means that the car disposal facilities will receive their first junk cars, for which the government is ready to pay 50,000 rouble certificates, on International Women's Day.
Any person with a car produced in 1999 or earlier will be able to participate in the trade-in. However, the compensation money can be spent only toward the purchase of a Russian car or a foreign car assembled in Russia. According to Mr. Khristenko, "some 60 to 65 models of different class cars will be available under the scheme."
The Ministry of Industry and Trade promises that 10 billion roubles will be earmarked for car subsidies. This sum will make it possible to scrap 200,000 cars. Another 1 billion roubles will be allocated as compensation for transporters of junk cars to auto wreckers—the number of which will soon increase. At present, there are merely 12-15 such facilities in Russia.
"Along with global warming problems, if they are to materialise, we must proceed from present realities and react promptly to the global cooling that we are experiencing today. This is obvious," the Prime Minister said when talking with Mr. Basargin.
"Russia is a northern country," and "it is more adept at tackling such problems than many western countries," Mr. Putin said. According to him, Russia entered the heating season on time, it had the necessary amount of fuel, including fuel reserves, and the power sector worked practically without failures. Regrettably, we could not do without some problems, he said. "There was an increase in the number of breakdowns in the main power networks, and there were quite a few problems at the regional and municipal levels," Mr. Putin said.
Mr. Basargin said, in turn, that "the overall situation since the beginning of this year has been better than in previous years: there were just 20 breakdowns and emergencies registered against last year's figure of 29."
"However, we did not sufficiently finance preparations for the cold season because of the financial crisis. The schedule of plan-based operations of the utilities sector was disrupted more often than last year (in all, some 2,400 violations and other incidents were registered this year)," the minister admitted.
Mr. Shokhin came to the Prime Minister with an unexpected proposal instead of a report. He suggested that representatives of both employers and trade unions should be invited to take part in the Cabinet meetings, so that they could express their opinions on the most complex and uncoordinated issues. Mr. Putin replied that Mikhail Shmakov, the head of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions, was present at all government meetings anyway, but Mr. Shokhin said, "it would be better if employers could be present there, too, to maintain the balance." "Agreed," the Prime Minister said.
Alexander Aronov
