Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Marat Khusnullin said that the number of regions in the country should be reduced. He said this on April 27 at the round table “Home, road, habitat: development scenarios, challenges, expectations, risks”, which was broadcast on the HSE portal.
“We don’t need 85 regions. I don’t want to deal with the Jewish Autonomous Region, I don’t want to do it in terms of labor costs, ”he said.
According to Khusnullin, many regions need to be united with neighboring regions.
“Some have oil revenues, others do not, do we have residents of another country?” – added the Deputy Prime Minister.
He said that he did not understand why, for example, residents of the Kurgan region should live worse than Tyumen residents, despite the fact that they live at a distance of “only 190 kilometers from each other.”
Khusnullin also believes that real estate taxes should be regulated within one metropolitan area or district. The Deputy Prime Minister called the current principle of territorial division wrong and promised to return to this topic after the September elections.
The Deputy Prime Minister noted that today in Russia there is a list of subjects that are unable to fulfill the instructions and tasks of the government.
On April 15, Russian President Vladimir Putin advised the heads of the regions and the Agency for Strategic Initiatives to follow the path that Russians go when they want to receive a particular service. According to the Russian leader, the authorized representatives of the heads of the regions should study for themselves, for example, how the procedure for enrolling children in school or kindergarten is going on. Putin noted that information based only on departmental information is not always objective.