ABOUT CHILDREN AND ABOUT WATER

Power and people

Last Thursday, at a meeting in the White House, two strategic issues for the country were decided. How to stimulate fertility. And how to properly use the country's natural resource - water - which is now being used very incorrectly ....

Last Thursday, at a meeting in the White House, two strategic issues for the country were decided. How to stimulate fertility. And how to properly use the country's natural resource - water - which is now being used very incorrectly. The ministers promptly dealt with the problem of fertility, but "floated" in discussions about water.

The speaker, Minister of Health and Social Development Mikhail Zurabov, who is responsible for stimulating the birth rate, recalled before his speech that the draft law had been prepared "in pursuance of measures aimed at implementing the president's message." That is why, as it turned out, the amount of 250 thousand rubles of “maternity capital” promised by the president for the second or third child will be received by a woman who has given birth since January 2007, not a day earlier. “The President delivered a message on May 10. According to our calculations, the child should be born in 2007, ”Zurabov explained the decision with an embarrassed smile.

The money can only be used three years after birth and only for one of three purposes - buying a home, educating a child, or providing a mother's pension. The budget for this will provide 131.8 billion rubles. The question of why it is impossible to use funds for treatment was of interest to journalists after the meeting (“The volume of free medical care will increase,” Zurabov assured). Under Dmitry Medvedev's concluding phrase that "I would like to support the bill", the discussion broke off as soon as it started.

Having unanimously stimulated the birth rate, the ministers took up water. Minister of Natural Resources Yury Trutnev immediately remembered that this issue was being discussed in the government for the first time in the last ten years. Water is “needed both for cooking and for industrial purposes, for hygiene purposes, even for recreation.”

As it turned out, more than 10% of what we consume per year is lost during transportation, drinking water does not meet sanitary standards, and the deterioration of sewerage networks in some cases reaches 100%. The hydraulic structures are also worn out.

To begin with, Trutnev proposed to raise the rate of payment for the use of water bodies from 4 to 6 times. And for the management of water resources, a single body is needed - for example, Rosvodoresurs under the auspices of the Ministry of Natural Resources.

“You have painted a difficult picture,” Mikhail Fradkov sighed. — And how much is business already involved in the water management complex? Who bears the risks on their shoulders? Where is the business?

The Minister reported that the business is integrated exactly to the extent that the industry is privatized, but all the same, the process of water purification is not stimulated by the rates of payments for its use. This did not satisfy Fradkov.

— And where can be the centers of technogenic risks? You say that business does not show zeal, but zeal is such a thing ... - Mikhail Efimovich narrowed his eyes knowingly. - He does not show zeal, and then he will explode somewhere ...

- To jerk, thank God, it should not be anywhere, - Trutnev assured.

The main question that tormented the ministers was to first determine the body that should centralize all management in its own hands. On Thursday he was not found.

- All the time I want to go to some organ ... I'm looking for this organ, but I can't find it, - Fradkov admitted sadly. - But "Rosvodoresurs" is not the body that can keep everything in this bowl ... - metaphorically concluded Mikhail Efimovich.

And categorically drew a line:

— What water, such is life.