The first tranche is to arrive this week.

(Kazan, August 26, Tatar-inform, Irina Ignatieva). Agrarians in Tatarstan will receive 2.5 billion roubles from the federal budget due to the recent drought. The total figure for Russia is 35 billion roubles. This is the first tranche of state-support funds. The funds will begin to arrive this week, the Tatarstan Association of Farmers and Private Farmsteads chairman Kamiyar Baitemirov told Tatar-inform during a visit to Moscow.

K. Baitemirov yesterday took part in the Russian Association of Farming Entities and Agricultural Cooperatives presidium and council’s meeting. The federal authorities were said to have allocated and sent to the regions the first tranche of state-support funds, which caused indignation among the participants who said the money had not been delivered to them.

The federal state aid funds are distributed in the following way: agrarians are to receive seeds and mineral fertilisers for autumn sowing worth about 1 billion roubles, the other 1.5 billion roubles will be given to agricultural producers and small businesses in cash.

The sum of the second tranche has not yet been disclosed which caused indignation among the meeting’s participants as well. The decision was made to send letters to the Russian agriculture minister Yelena Skrynnik and first deputy government chairman Viktor Zubkov. The farmers intend to present their vision of the problem, stressing that no money has reached them.

The Tatarstan delegation stays in Moscow. According to K. Baitemirov, he intends to meet with heads of insurance companies, to discuss in detail recompensing this year’s drought-induce damage to the farmers. He will meet with heads of production companies and associations, to negotiate supplies of animal and plant products made in Tatarstan.
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