Half of Russian single-industry towns may soon be left without funding. In 2020, the government plans to allocate federal budget funds to 170 out of 231 towns only.
The Ministry of Economic Development announced its plans to review the list of one-company towns in mid-October. However, there was no intention to dramatically reduce the amount of support as it could seriously affect some of the towns. The government wants to introduce a new criteria for cities to be classified as single-industry towns. Specifically, towns with a population of under 3K people will no longer be able to receive funding, Izvestia reports.
Also, federal funds will no longer be available to the monocities where the city-forming company does not play the key role anymore. This criterion eliminates the towns that actually tried to create and alternative economy.
Russia planned to provide jobs in single-industry towns to 600K Russians. The Ministry of Economic Development’s main task was to prevent unemployment in such areas.