Federal budget to invest 40% of funds necessary for dredging works at Northern Dvina
Conference dedicated to State and Maintenance of Russia’s inland waterways was held in Kotlas at Northern Dvina Basin Administration of waterways and navigation. According to Rosbalt-Sever, heads of Russian Basin Administrations, representatives of the Ministry of Transport and research assistants of Moscow State University participated in the conference. The main subject of the conference is reforming of Russia’s water transport management system and financing of inland waterways maintenance. According to Vladimir Shmykov, deputy head of Sevvodput FSI, dredging works at Northern Dvina were carried out this year but this work is not sufficient. Total under-financing of the region’s main water way by Federation is 20%. The amount necessary for dredging works has been estimated in a rough way and the Federal budged covers only 40% of the sum specified. Leonid Pervushin, head of Sevvodput FSI, is in Moscow now in order to discuss the issues related to prolongation of Northern Dvina navigation after October 3. We would like to remind that initial financing was to cover maintenance of navigation till October 3. Timber companies are now interested in prolongation of navigation period since they hope to use this time for transportation of materials, which they failed to transport in spring because of timber floating navigation failure. The most significant item of expenses financed by Moscow is technical transport fuel costs, Shmykov reports. But Moscow did not consider increase of prices for diesel fuel until recently. Only this year Moscow asked about fuel volume necessary for vessel’s operation.