Over 7% of HS at Russian rivers are in a very unsafe condition – Control Board of the RF President
Inspection carried out by the Control Board of the RF President revealed critical state of inland waterways of the country, Gudok writes. Control Board experts report that only 31% of hydraulic structures located at Russian rivers meet the requirements of safe navigation, over 60% need to be repaired while over 7% of structures are in a “breakdown state”. Urgent repair is needed to prevent technological disaster. The president’s resolution included into the report to the RF Government and Ministry of Transport orders to take “urgent measures” for situation improvement in the river industry, the newspaper reports.
According to Gudok, less than one third of 100 thou km of inland waterways are in good operation order as regards width and depth of ship channels as of 2006. At the same time, according to navigation equipment installed at waterways, only 15 thou km of waterways are available for round-the-clock navigation.
Considering all these facts, the Ministry of Economic Development, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Transport got recommendations from the Control Board as regards determination of “sufficient” funds for works on maintenance of navigation at river lines and modernization of hydraulic structures, first of all at Volga-Baltic waterway, Volga-Don and Volga-Caspian Canals.
The newspaper reminds, that current norms for financing of works at inland waterways were one developed by Ministry of Economic Development and Ministry of Finance of RF. According to those norms, annual allocations from federal budget were set to 8 – 9 billion rubles. But according to Tanker Union of Russia, Association of Shipping Companies and major Basin Administrations, actual sums amounted within last 10 years to less than 50% of planned financing. According to the estimates of Leonid Bagrov, Director General of Tanker Union, river industry didn’t get 16 billion of rubles from the federal budget.
need 2 billion of rubles annually, while maintenance and repair of lock structures supporting waterfront at hydro-systems of HPS at the Russian rivers need over 1.5 billion rubles annually, or about 15% of total costs.
