Alexey Ostrovskiy took part in the meeting of the State Council of the Russian Federation

Vladimir Putin presided over the meeting of the State Council on the housing and utilities sector. The meeting discussed the issues of improving the quality of the housing and utilities services, increasing the pace of modernization of the sector's infrastructure and its investment attractiveness. In addition, the proposals to resolve the sector's debt problem and personnel shortage issue were also examined. Governor Alexey Ostrovskiy took part in the meeting.

Opening the State Council meeting, Vladimir Putin stressed that in spite of the laws and decisions taken, no drastic changes have occurred in the industry yet. The President drew the attention of the meeting to the depreciation of the fixed assets in the housing and utilities sector. The national depreciation average is 60 percent, and in some cases it is as high as 80 percent. The total investment need only to restore the infrastructure of the housing and utilities sector to the standard values amounts to 9.1 trillion rubles.

Vladimir Putin said that today the main task is to modernize the industry, which should lead to a qualitative improvement of the housing and utilities services. In the years 2013-2020 the Federal Center plans to spend significant funds for this purpose: about 40 billion rubles will be allocated only to update the housing and utilities infrastructure. At the same time Vladimir Putin pointed out that only budget funds aren’t enough for modernization, so it is necessary to create conditions attracting private investments in the housing and utilities sector.

The Head of the State said that housing and utilities sector is a powerful market with a turnover of 4.2 trillion rubles a year, where competition mechanisms should be working and government regulation policy should be clear and transparent. However, now the housing and utilities sector does not attract private business.

Strengthening the control over the quality of services in the sector and introducing standards of providing them are among the problems identified by the Head of the State. According to Vladimir Putin, to address this problem it is necessary to attract enthusiastic and caring people. Creating a system of public control is an effective mechanism to intensify the housing and utilities sector reform. "People offer their services, they are willing to work, and we should support them," - said Vladimir Putin.

The Head of the State emphasized the need to protect the citizens’ rights in the housing and utilities sector, for example by increasing the transparency of utilities bills.

The meeting also discussed the issue of shortage of specialists in the housing and utilities sector which is close to 70 percent. In addition, the State Council meeting proposed a draft of federal target program to reform the housing and utilities sector.

At the end of the meeting, Vladimir Putin set the task for the government to accelerate the pace of solving problems in the housing and utilities sector, and not to put off passing the necessary legislation.

"I believe this State Council meeting was very important. In my opinion, the issues of bad quality of utility services, growth of tariffs are the key ones concerning people all over Russia and in our region in particular. The vast majority of complaints I receive from Smolensk people are connected with this particular sphere. People are not satisfied with the managing companies that set the tariffs without providing the necessary services. People do not want to pay for the services that are of poor quality”, - commented Governor Alexey Ostrovskiy on the State Council meeting.

The head of the region noted that the Government of the Russian Federation received the task to develop specific mechanisms to modernize the housing and utilities sector, and above all, to solve such problems as the total depreciation of pipelines and constant growth of tariffs.

According to the Governor, the key problem in the housing and utilities sector is the absence of transparency. First of all it is the transparency of the sector itself: "Very often heads of managing companies are either relatives of the local authorities, or their friends. Of course, all these things should be monitored and settled by security providing ministries". Secondly, it is the transparency of the pricing policy in the housing and utilities sector. "The people of our region and the whole country need to understand how this or that tariff is calculated, who to and what for it is paid. People often get bills from various companies. Let's wait for the specific mechanisms that the Government has to find", - summed up Alexey Ostrovskiy.