"Improving the quality of life is impossible without a serious revision of environmental responsibility"
Today, the State Council of the Republic of Tatarstan hosted a meeting of the Committee on Ecology, Nature Management, Agro-industrial and Food Policy.
The parliamentarians discussed the Report on the activities of the executive authorities of the Republic of Tatarstan for 2021. Deputy Minister of Ecology Egor Tarnavsky made a report on the work of the Ministry of Ecology.
"Our republic has been a leader in the Volga Federal District in terms of investments in environmental protection for many years," said Yegor Tarnavsky, "in total, more than 11.5 billion rubles have been allocated from budgets of all levels, including enterprises. Last year Tatarstan took part in 4 federal projects – "Improvement of the Volga", "Clean Country", "Preservation of unique water bodies" and "Conservation of forests". 3 billion 300 million rubles were allocated for their implementation, including over 2.5 billion from the federal budget. This year Tatarstan will take part in another federal project - "Protection from the negative effects of water and ensuring the safety of hydraulic structures on the territory of Russia".
The most important task, as the speaker noted, is to provide the population with high-quality drinking water. "According to the law, all existing water intakes of centralized water supply of the population must be licensed," said Yegor Tarnavsky, "today 1,664 licenses for groundwater have already been issued."
At the meeting of the Committee, the deputies also discussed draft laws on amendments to the Environmental Code of the Republic of Tatarstan and the Republican law on the fertility of agricultural lands, as well as a number of federal bills.
The draft law on amendments to the Environmental Code of the Republic of Tatarstan has been prepared for consideration in the first reading due to the need to bring the republican legislation into line with the federal one. According to Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Ecology, Nature Management, Agro-Industrial and Food Policy Tahir Khadeev, changes have been made to the Water Code of the Russian Federation and a number of federal laws.
According to the new draft law, article 98 of the Environmental Code of the Republic has been supplemented with a ban on pollution of the territory located within the boundaries of water protection zones with substances whose maximum permissible concentrations in the waters of water bodies, of fishery significance have not been established.
The bill also corrects the terminology. Concepts such as the width of the coastal protective strip of a river, lake, reservoir are being clarified.