Russian Prime Minister and presidential frontrunner Vladimir Putin in a new article proposed a set of measures aimed to increase country’s population from 142 million to 154 million people.
The summary of Putin’s article called Building Fairness. Social Politics for Russia has been published on the Website of Komsomolskaya Pravda daily on Sunday. The full text will be released on Monday.
Putin said creating enough places in state kindergartens is a top-priority task for the country’s leadership.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union the majority of state kindergartens were closed and their buildings sold to private owners. Over the last decades, the national birth rate has improved, but the number of available places in state kindergartens remains miserable.
Families living in regions with negative demographic situation should receive financial support after the birth of their third kid, the Premier said. “This means about 7,000 rubles per month.”
Putin proposed re-building ‘working aristocracy’ class. By 2020 it should comprise about 10 million people, or one third of Russia’s workers.
He also proposed raising student scholarships by 5,000 rubles per month.
Putin called for the introduction of schemes aimed to reduce the cost of real estate by 20-30 percent.
If all these proposals are implemented, the country’s population will grow to 154 million by 2050, he went on. Otherwise, it might decline to 107 million over the next 38 years, the premier emphasized.
TV channels dedicated appealing to people who love classical music, theatre, art, architecture, literature and history should be set up, Putin also added.
Putin served two terms as Russia’s president between 2000 and 2008, but was barred from standing for a third consecutive term by the Constitution. He became prime minister after his handpicked successor, Dmitry Medvedev, became president.
This is the fifth article in a series of the Russian prime minister’s articles about his campaign platform. The first, published on January 16 in the Izvestia daily, focused on general problems that Russia currently faces. The second, published on January 23 in the Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily, was devoted to modern problems of multiethnic Russia. The third article focused on economic issues and was published on January 30 in Vedomosti. The fourth focused on corruption and internet democracy.
