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YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 25, ARMENPRESS. In the end of October Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan instructed Minister of Transport, Communication and Information Technologies to specify the list of communities that are not included in the transportation routes, to clarify the reasons and present solutions in order to provide all communities with transport.
Deputy Minister Aram Arsenyan told “Armenpress” that by the Minister’s instruction a working group has been formed. “We visited the provinces, discussed the existing issues with the governors and the representatives of transportation companies”, the Deputy Minister said.
As a result of discussion it became clear that there are different reasons, such as poor rural roads, less population, in some communities even residence seasonality. This last reason is typical in 4 communities of Gegharkunik Province that are not provided with transportation. The Deputy Minister said rural residents of these communities are engaged in animal husbandry, they go to mountains to graze the cattle for 6-7 months, and in the remaining months they take care of their needs by their own vehicles.
The rural roads are in poor condition in 6 communities of Armavir province, but the passenger transportation companies refuse from the routes since the number of passengers is small. Similar reasons exist in 7 communities of Ararat province. There are 21 communities that don’t have transportation routes in Shirak province. Those communities are located in the north-western part of the province, they are small communities. Although the roads are in normal condition here, the passenger flow is small.
Aram Arsenyan presented the Ministry’s view on solving the issue:
“The Government is conducting a budgetary targeted financing to those communities in order they are able to sign a contract with the transport companies by these funds compensating their damages”.
25 of 31 communities of Tavush province do not have transportation routes, they are bordering villages. Those communities also have few people. The same issues persist in the bordering communities of Vayots Dzor province. The Ministry proposes to run a specific policy here.
“The transportation companies that serve the bordering communities must be entirely free from all types of taxes and fees”, the Deputy Minister said.
He outlined one more option for solving the issue: “The competition for the right to serve any inter-province profitable route can be combined with any provincial non-profitable route”.
The Ministry’s project to include 97 communities, that are without transportation routes, to the list of routes is ready and has been submitted to the Government’s discussion.