MOSCOW. Jan 30 (Interfax-AVN) - The State Duma Defense Committee has submitted a bill, envisioning an increase in money allowance of volunteers, Gennady Semigin, a State Duma legislator and the author of the bill, told Interfax-Military News Agency on Friday.
Semigin clarified that the bill envisions a three-fold increase in the money allowance for renting apartments and one- time grants per family member to servicemen, stationed in Transcaucasia, the Baltic states, and Tajikistan.
"The aforementioned money allowances saw the last increase in 2001 and at the present time total RUB300 (USD10) for renting apartments and RUB100 (USD3) of one-time grants per evacuated family member," the legislator said.
According to him, these scanty pays cannot help servicemen, serving in extremely difficult conditions, any.
In the meantime, the Russian government does not support the bill, the Duma administration told Interfax-AVN.
The governmental conclusion, submitted to the State Duma, says that "at the present time the situation in the aforementioned regions has stabilized, while servicemen service in these regions on a temporary rotational basis. The necessity of granting additional benefits and guarantees to such servicemen and their family members, pertaining to their possible evacuation, has become unreasonable."
"Despite the negative governmental conclusion, the bill will be submitted to the State Duma for consideration," Major General Nikolai Bezborodov, member of the State Duma Defense Committee, who has been appointed responsible for working out this bill, told Interfax-AVN.