SCHOOLS AND HOSPITALS FOR CHERNOBYL VICTIMS WERE NOT BUILT

The Russian government has evaluated the Government Program for 1992-2000,"On Protection of the Population of the Russian Federation Who Suffered from the Catastrophe at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant."

One of the main directions of this program was the social and economic rehabilitation of the contaminated territories. The general content of that direction is construction in the social sphere. The amount allocated for investment in this Program was 152.6 billion rubles, but the results show only 19 percent was actually invested.

There was construction in 14 districts of the Russian Federation. The largest social construction was in the most contaminated regions - Bryanskaya, Kaluzhskaya, Tulskaya, and Orlovskaya - with 128,974 square meters of dwelling space, and schools for 17,043 children during the last 8 years. 3.96 billion rubles was spent for the construction of Public Clubs.

The worst situation is with the construction of kindergartens; there were only enough built for 3,465 children. And not one kindergarten was built in 1998/1999. The situation with hospital construction in the contaminated districts was just as bad with only enough built for 862 beds. Not a single hospital was built in the period from 1997 through 1999.

A major problem for inhabitants of the contaminated areas is the lack of natural gas. Not one ruble was invested in the gas net for the "radioactive" villages in the period from 1992-1996; in 1997-1999, 694,14 million rubles was invested for gas net.

As we can see, the results of the Governmental construction program for Chernobyl is less than modest. Since the Chernobyl catastrophe, 52,447 people were resettled from the contaminated zones to "clean" sites. A large part of them do not own a house or apartment during that time. Thus far 3,286 families are waiting for governmental dwelling space.

Taking into consideration investments in construction in the contaminated areas in addition to the Federal budget, 64 projects will not be finished up to the year 2001. The lack of funding is 2 035 billion rubles.