CHITA, Southern Siberia. Dec 3 (Interfax-AVN) - Army General Alexander Kosovan, chief of the Armed Forces Construction and Quartering Department, deputy defense minister, has arrived in the Siberian military district for studying this year's results of military construction in Siberia and the Trans-Baikal region, the district's press service reported on Tuesday.
"Army General Alexander Kosovan will consider results of activity of the district's military construction units, as well as current and future issues pertaining to capital construction, repairs, and accommodation of troops relocated in the framework of restructuring in the district," a press service official told Interfax-Military News Agency.
The general will pay special attention to servicemen's housing, including the construction of apartment blocks in western Russia for servicemen of the Siberian district in the framework of the State Housing Certificates program, the official said.
"In the past five years, 2,369 people in the district have got certificates in the framework of the presidential program of housing provision to servicemen; 1,771 certificates have been given to retirees and 598 certificates to military pensioners and people who moved from restricted-access military compounds. However, only 53 percent of servicemen and military pensioners who received certificates in Siberia and the Trans-Baikal regions have managed to obtain apartments. The main reason is that the money equivalent of the state certificate is much lower than the true cost of real estate, especially in big cities," the official said.
In the district, Kosovan will study and check the work of military construction units and housing maintenance services in several garrisons and consider aspects of operating utilities in winter.