Vayots Dzor Marz Governor Harutyun Sargsyan reported to Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan the implementation of Premier’s instructions issued at the consultation held in Vayots Dzor Marz on July 29, 2017.
The Governor first touched upon the work done to raise the local farmers’ awareness of the Government’s initiatives aimed at developing intensive gardens, drip irrigation systems, hail-proof networks and other programs.
Harutyun Sargsyan said drip irrigation is being applied on an area of 40 hectares. The farmers’ interest for the new system has increased considerably. As of September, 2017, the State Financial Lease Support Program beneficiaries had purchased one unit of agricultural machinery with accessories in Taratumb community. 140 applications have been submitted by the households desirous of benefiting from the government-approved interest rate subsidy program, which were mainly related to animal husbandry, new technology-based intensive gardens and the processing of raw materials.
In line with the Prime Minister’s instruction, the Governor said to have made specific efforts to collect communities’ own revenues. The overall performance recorded at this stage is 103.2%, which exceeds by 106.9 million drams the index of the same period last year.
Down to waste management, the Governor advised that 112 out of 129 community dumps had already been cleaned and closed. Preparatory work has been carried out to organize the nationwide clean-up of October 21.
The garbage collection fee estimation mechanisms have been revised for individual communities. Rural communities will face a single threshold for garbage collection. The total amount of garbage collection fees levied from legal entities and households has seen a positive growth in comparison with the previous year to come up to 67.4% in the first 8 months of 2017.
Admitting that there is some positive progress, the Prime Minister nevertheless considered the results to be insufficient and suggested taking up the matter in a short while. As regards healthcare, paid services stood at 29 million drams against the budget within the first 8 months of 2017, which is 7% up the index of the same period in 2016. The Governor was instructed to carry out consistent work to significantly increase this index, as well as to involve private managers in medical institutions.
Governor Sargsyan next provided information on the ongoing investment programs. 6.7 billion drams will be invested in total resulting in 190 jobs. 1850 jobs were created in 2017, with 884 permanent jobs to be provided after the completion of a number of infrastructure projects.
In order to boost agricultural production, 23 investment projects have been submitted to an aggregate value of 2,518 million drams, 8 of which were approved by the Government to a total cost of 1,616 million drams. Two of them – dried fruit and cheese production programs – have already been financed at the rate of 120 million drams.
The Governor noted that tourism is one of the most dynamically developing spheres in their region’s economy. In the first 8 months of 2017, the number of tourists reached 28,200 against 24,500 last year. The infrastructures have been significantly improved leading to higher service quality. As he said, Jermuk’s development projects will help promote tourism in the region.
With reference to the small and medium-size reservoir construction strategy, the Governor dwelt on the construction of reservoirs. The Premier told him to elaborate the projects as thoroughly as possible and discuss them with the Chairman of State Water Management Committee.
