‘Complaints about passenger transportation keep coming’: how ministry of transport reports on expenses to deputies

Plus the “Moscow” 125.5 billion rubles for three years

By the upcoming second reading, the draft republican budget for 2025 and the next two years will be replenished with a substantial amount of federal injections. After the redistribution of transfers between regions in Moscow, Tatarstan will receive an additional 42.7 billion rubles next year, 42.1 billion rubles in 2026 and 40.7 billion rubles in 2027. In total, the republican treasury will be replenished by 125.5 billion rubles of subsidies and subventions in the coming three years, or about a 10-15% increase of the annual amount of income.

Additional revenues were agreed upon after the passage of the federal budget in the first reading in the State Duma, which took place on October 24. It is for this reason that a meeting of the Budget, Taxes and Finance Committee was held in the republican parliament on 12 November, where amendments to the republican budget for this amount were discussed.

How Communist Party withdrew the amendments, but asked for a gravel road for the affected five villages

“The committee received 356 amendments within the scheduled time," Leonid Yakunin, the chairman of the budget committee, reported. "340 amendments were sent by the government of the Republic of Tatarstan, 16 — by the Communist Party faction. All the amendments were worked out, but later the Communists withdrew due to that some of the issues were resolved during the discussion.

Deputy of the State Council of Tatarstan from the Communist Party Fadbir Safin confirmed that the amendments are being withdrawn, but with the exception of two.

“We are pleased that budget revenues and expenditures are growing, the budget is socially oriented, we also support this," said Fadbir Safin.

According to him, the Communist Party will insist on solving problems in the Cheremshansky district and Naberezhnye Chelny. He did not say what exactly is troubling the residents of these municipalities. But later he defended five villages that were cut off from life after the construction of the M7 expressway bypassing Naberezhnye Chelny and Nizhnekamsk.

“After the construction of the M12 toll road (we are talking about the M7 section as part of the highway — ed. note), residents of these villages are asked to take a 30 km detour. It is difficult and expensive. Is it possible to make a 1.5 km gravel road?” he gently asked the leadership of the ministry of transport of Tatarstan to correct the shortcomings in the work.

Moreover, deputies from other factions supported him in this, and the head of the budget committee warned that the issue was under control. Anyway, the amendments of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation were not included in the agenda, and 340 notes from the Cabinet of Ministers of the republic were “uploaded” to the “iPads” of the meeting participants.

How will the budget be “rewritten” due to the amendment of 42.7 billion rubles

Finance Minister Radik Gaizatullin tried to present the essence of 340 amendments in more detail. According to him, they can be divided into five blocks. 206 amendments were brought into the first block, which are related to an increase in revenues and expenditures of the republican budget at the expense of federal funds received after the distribution of transfers to the subjects of the Russian Federation. According to him, the parameters of the republican budget are proportionally increased by 42.7 billion rubles. Revenues will grow to 472.1 billion rubles, expenses — to 486 billion rubles, and the budget deficit remains the same — at 13.5 billion rubles, as adopted in the first reading.

The head of the budget committee, Leonid Yakunin, asked in what main areas there was an increase in expenditure items. The minister of finance of the Republic of Tatarstan replied that the revenues of the ministry of education and the ministry of healthcare are increasing due to subventions under the transferred powers. But there is a decrease in road management and in the budget of the ministry of ecology. In general, the increase will affect all industries, both in terms of income and expenses, Gaizatullin added.

The second block summarises the amendments related to that excise tax rates on beer, alcohol and diesel fuel will increase from January 1. The third block contains 16 amendments related to the adoption of certain legal acts with the redistribution of funds within the budget of the Republic of Tatarstan. There were no specific figures on what was redistributed within the budget and how. Only the head of the committee on ecology, Azat Khamayev, asked for a detailed breakdown.

“The amendments will be reflected in the decree of the government of Tatarstan on programmes, as they are funded from two sources," the head of the ministry of finance of the Republic of Tatarstan answered him.

In conclusion, the head of the budget committee Leonid Yakunin proposed to approve the amendments proposed by the government of the Republic of Tatarstan and adopt an appropriate resolution.

“We have reviewed it in the office, it does not raise any major questions. I propose to approve the resolution of the committee and submit it to the second reading," he concluded.

Let's add that the territorial fund of the MHI turned out to be in the black. Eight amendments were proposed regarding the fund, of which seven are related to an increase in funds from the federal budget of the ministry of healthcare and the budget of Tatarstan. Over three years, an additional 7.3 billion rubles will be received, over 8 billion for 2026, 11.5 billion rubles for 2027.

Why Voznesensky Highway is lagging behind, while the Gorky highway is on schedule

Apparently, the adjustment of the republican budget will affect the “gold-bearing” road sector. Probably for this reason, the leadership of the ministry of transport of Tatarstan was invited to parliament with a report on the development of budget funds. Hundreds of billions of rubles are allocated for the construction of roads in the republic from year to year. So, this year the industry became a record holder again — it was allocated 70 billion rubles. The lion's share of 60 billion rubles came from the republican budget, and federal assistance was limited to 8 billion rubles. At the same time, about 3.5 billion rubles of subsidies were allocated for transport (water, rail, air, public).

The report had to be presented by Deputy Minister of Transport and Road Management of the Republic of Tatarstan Lilia Safiullina. According to her, 72% of the allocated resources have been used in road construction. Contractors working on roads under the Safe High-Quality Roads national project in three agglomerations approached the 100% development indicator (slightly lagging behind in Naberezhnye Chelny). Here, 85% of federal roads meet the regulatory level. 2,207 billion has been allocated for regional roads, with 53 projects underway. But only every second road meets the regulatory level, she said.

Then the deputy minister moved on to dry figures on the pace of construction of outbound roads in Tatarstan. At the end of this year, the second stage of the Voznesensky Highway, the Gorky Highway in Kazan, and later the Yoshkar-Ola — Zelenodolsk federal highway are expected to be commissioned as part of the Bolshoy Zelenodolsk project. It turned out that the contractors spent the least amount of money on the Voznesensky Highway. Just this morning, Rustam Minnikhanov arrived here together with the mayor of Kazan, Ilsur Metshin.

According to Lilia Safiullina, 9.4 billion rubles have been spent in two years with a total estimated cost of 26 billion rubles. The balance of the construction and installation works (CIW) is 16.7 billion rubles. The situation is different with the Gorky Highway. In two years, 27.2 billion rubles have been disbursed, although 14.5 billion rubles have been received, according to the report. The construction of the Yoshkar-Ola—Zelenodolsk road is on schedule. With an estimated cost of 5,213 billion rubles, 82% of the work has been completed.

However, the deputies were concerned about the problem of public transport.

“Complaints about passenger transportation do not stop. Something needs to be changed, something needs to be done, because the problem is becoming permanent," said Deputy of the State Council of the Republic of Tatarstan Marat Galeev. “Is the development of money clear, and then? When the Ministry of Construction reports on the development, it says how many square metres have been built, it is clear here. When I ask how much a kilometre of road costs, they can't answer me," he was surprised.

“Because the roads are of different categories — Lilia Safiullina was ahead of the answer.

“But the average figure should fluctuate," Galeev objected to her.