On November 5, the joint sitting of the RA NA Standing Committees on Territorial Administration, Local Self-Government, Agriculture and Environment Protection and on Financial Credit and Budgetary Affairs was held, where the draft law on the RA State Budget for 2022 was debated. The Minister of the RA Environment Romanos Petrosyan has informed that in 2022, the department headed by him will implement 6 programmes with 22 events. “The volume of financing presented in the budget request for 2022 on the current programmes is 6bln 772mln AMD which is 26,5% lower than the index of the previous year. It is due to the expiration of the contract terms of the Support Programmes for Specially Protected Areas of Nature of Synuik Marz implemented within the frameworks of the grant programme of the KFW bank. The term of the contract expires at the end of this year,” Romanos Petrosyan said.
Works of forest restoration will be carried out within the framework of the events in the amount of about 130 ha, the cleaning of Lake Sevan will be continued, works on environment impact assessment will be carried out etc. Romanos Petrosyan informed that the maintenance expenditures of the Ministry have decreased by 5.8% which is due to the reduction of 13 posts in the current year. Today, the Ministry has 215 staff positions, and in the near future, it is envisaged to reduce some of them which are vacant.