Thursday, 31 March 2011
Natural gas to get cheaper for vulnerable households
An outgoing cabinet sitting was held today in the schoolhouse after Mesrop Mashtots of Oshakan village, chaired by Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan
To begin with, the sitting heard and took note of the 2010 annual report on the social-economic status of Aragatsotni marz, delivered by marz governor Sargis Sahakyan.
The government next passed a decision on establishing lower tariffs for natural gas supplied to vulnerable households. Hayrusgasard CJSC was suggested lowering gas tariffs set by the public utility regulatory commission and charge 100 drams for each 1000 cubic meter natural gas supplied to vulnerable households for the bills below 10,000 cubic meters in the period between April 1, 2011 and March 31, 2012. According to Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan, some 60,000 households will benefit from this decision in line with the President Serzh Sargsyan’s directive which is an important measure.
The government approved the order of conducting mandatory overhauls for individual means of conveyance under which different terms will be applied for the overhaul, ticketing and registration of public and individual means of conveyance.
A series of decisions have been passed in support of the agricultural sector. In particular, the Executive has approved this year’s quotas for State support to water user associations. The government will earmark AMD 4,200bn to offset the cost of irrigation water preventing the rise in tariffs. Thus, the State covers about 60% of the annual spending on irrigation water.
The 2011-2012 spring barley seed reproduction program was backed with another decree passed at the meeting. In this connection, the Prime Minister noted that the government will henceforth prioritize the welfare programs rather than the seed-breeding ones in compliance with the proposals received from the provinces. The meeting decided to allocate AMD 200,000.0 to the Ministry of Agriculture to subsidize by 4 percentage points interest rate on agricultural lending available through the finance ministry’s “Rural Funding Entity-PIU” State institution.
The meeting amended a previous decision to continue subsidizing the loans already extended and due to be extended under the “Affordable Housing for Young Households” program in the second quarter of 2011. Under another decision, the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs was reserved the right to distribution of Armenia’s first-ever social housing estate.
The government amended a previous decree on the procedure to follow in drawing lots and providing bonuses for tax administration improvement purposes. The amended decree stipulates that from now on no pecuniary incentives will be available for winning cash-register tickets, instead 15 motor-cars will be drawn instead of 10.
