Dagestan could become the first republic of the North Caucasus to get its own program in the state program of development of the North Caucasus Federal District. The relevant draft decree was prepared by the Ministry for the North Caucasus, which estimates the total volume of federal funds required for the development of Dagestan till 2025 at 80 billion rubles.
The Ministry for the North Caucasus proposes expanding the state program 'Development of the North Caucasus Federal District', adding a subroutine for the development of one of the largest regions of the district – Dagestan. Draft amendments were made following the instructions of the government of 16 July 2014 on the preparation of such routines. The purpose of innovation, as stated in the explanatory memorandum to the draft, is "raising living standards and reducing poverty on the basis of dynamic and sustainable economic growth," Kommersant reports.
Now, as is stated in the note, the real economic sector is weakly developed. In oil and gas production in recent years in Dagestan there has been a "steady downward trend," due to which tax revenues have fallen, and the number of workers has fallen as well.
The Ministry of the Economy considers the creation of a separate sub-program for Dagestan to be inappropriate, because it may lead to requests for allocation of subprograms by other regions of the North Caucasus Federal District. According to the Ministry of Finance, 63 billion rubles were allocated from the federal government (transfers) to the budget of Dagestan in 2014, or 21 thousand rubles per capita, which is equal to 70% of the budget revenues of the Republic. In comparable terms of the population of Stavropol Territory, the volume of transfers amounted to 30.5 billion rubles, or 11 thousand rubles per person (32% of revenues). Chechnya last year received 56.9 billion rubles. (42 thousand rubles per person, transfers accounted for 82% of revenues), Ingushetia – 21 billion rubles. (45 thousand rubles, 86%).
Now in the state program "Development of the North Caucasus Federal District" there are four sub-programs: to ensure its implementation, to improve the investment attractiveness of the North Caucasus Federal District, on the development of the Mineral Waters resort, as well as with the Southern District subroutine of the tourism cluster in the North Caucasus Federal District, Krasnodar Territory and Adygea. The original version of the state program contained seven routines for each region of the North Caucasus, but the federal budget did not provide for them. In February last year when finalizing the state program the Ministry of the Economy insisted on the rejection of the territorial principle.