Half a million second

The Pension Fund of Russia has published a forecast for the birth rate for 2007

The Russian Pension Fund predicts that in 2007, more than 500 thousand young mothers will receive the right to a monetary reward for the second and any subsequent child - the so-called maternity capital . As the head of the Pension Fund Gennady Batanov (pictured) said yesterday, he expects that 40-50 thousand parents will apply to the regional branches of the fund for certificates every month. January, however, may not be so fruitful . As calculated by the Pension Fund, as of January 15, only 106 applications were submitted throughout the country. Which is understandable: firstly, there were holidays for half a month, and secondly, the parents of babies are too busy - they don’t have time to go through the authorities. And this is not necessary, because the right to maternity capital can be registered within two years after the birth of the child.

However, the certificate forms themselves, which will confirm the right to capital, are still being developed. The competition for their production was announced on January 9, and the winners will be announced exactly one month later. The contract for printing 600 thousand forms - this should be enough for the current year - will be concluded no later than February 28.

The struggle with the bureaucracy for the right to become the owner of this certificate will also be serious. As some wits have calculated, to obtain a certificate for maternity capital you need to collect no less paperwork than to obtain a Schengen visa. First, at the registry office you need to get a birth certificate for the baby, then put a note about the birth of the second (third, fourth, etc.) child in the parents’ passport (it’s good that from February 4 there will be no need to provide an insert about the child’s citizenship if both parents children are citizens of Russia). You will have to provide similar documents for your first children and take an extract from the housing office. And only then can you go to the local branch of the Pension Fund, where you fill out an application form for issuing a certificate.

According to the law, within one month after submitting the application, a letter with a response from the fund must be sent to the child’s mother - either in it the parents will be invited to a second appointment with officials, or they will be refused to receive a certificate. If the answer is yes, then on the appointed day the parents can receive the paper to literally put it in the “long drawer.” It will be possible to sell 250 thousand rubles, directing them to improve living conditions, educate children or increase the funded part of the mother’s pension, only starting from 2010. The fact that the new document does not imply the issuance of cash and can be implemented only after three years should save the Pension Fund branches from unnecessary fuss and queues. Although the First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Government, Dmitry Medvedev, recently expressed concerns in this regard: “There should be a minimum of bureaucracy and the most attentive attitude towards women and other recipients of these benefits, so that they do not stand in queues, do not jostle and do not ask questions.”

An applicant, according to Gennady Batanov, can be refused only in two cases: if the information provided about the order of birth (adoption) and citizenship of the child turns out to be unreliable (the fund checks this information within 14 days) or when re-applying for state financial support. For example, when a certificate has already been issued for the second child, and the parents want to receive money for the third one as well.

Galina PAPERNAYA