SAMARA. Jan 23 (Interfax-AVN) - The number of servicemen having no apartment of their own is growing in restricted-access garrisons of the Volga-Ural military district, Lieutenant General Alexander Lukin, head of the Defense Ministry's Military Inspection, said on Thursday.
"As families who have lost connection with the army are not removed from restricted-access garrisons, available housing funds do not make it possible to provide housing to all needy people. As a result, the number of servicemen without their own flats is growing in some garrisons," Lukin told Interfax-Military News Agency.
The general recalled that regulatory documents classify apartments in restricted-access compounds as service housing. However this is not so in reality, he said.
"According to various estimates, over 1,2000 families who do not have or have lost connection with the Defense Ministry due to various are living in the Roshcha and Totskoye military compounds alone. They amount to 30 to 50 percent of the compounds' residents," Lukin noted.
Local authorities do not transfer these families to other localities, he said. "And the district is unable to effect the removal on its own without jeopardizing the program of housing construction for current servicemen. As a result, over 150 families of servicemen have no flats in the Roshcha garrison alone. Over 400 families of this kind are in the Totskoye garrison," the general said.
According to Lukin, the authorities of the Samara region are not eager to take control over installations of the social sphere from the military. In particular, the Defense Ministry is ready to give away to the local authorities over 150 apartment blocks for nearly 1,300 apartments with appropriate infrastructure in Samara.
Documents for the transfer were submitted to the city administration nearly a year ago, he noted.
"However, the municipal authorities have not made a decision. As a result, the Defense Ministry continues to bear the burden of maintaining these immovables. Meanwhile, 70 percent of people living in those houses are no longer connected with the ministry," Lukin said.