The house has set up an ad hoc team that will be offering legislative amendments and practical advice to smooth out law implementation, he added.
The Federation Council called the Cabinet to make quarterly reports to it on compliance with the new law.
"Healthy ideas underlay the bill from the start. As for technicalities, we made more than eighty essential amendments, and so had every reason now to approve the bill," emphasised the Speaker.
Senators are uneasy, however, over its implementation in the various parts of the country, considering their uneven revenues, he acknowledged.
A federal reserve fund to even out regional budgets has increased to 30 billion roubles, roughly a billion US dollars, as against an initially earmarked 5 billion roubles, to which the Cabinet eventually added another ten billion. Mr. Mironov is enthusiastic with this act of generosity.
"We are glad to see the government increasing the fund to thirty billion. All regions, wealthy and poor alike, have to cope with their welfare obligations, and it is the federal centre's duty to help them," he said.
The Federation Council passed a statement on the population's social protection today. It calls regional legislatures to be quicker with new bylaws that will ensure implementing the federal welfare grant law. Regional administrations are to pace up enlisting persons entitled to those monthly grants, medicines to be bought at reduced prices, and reduced spa accommodation fees.
The statement appeals to the Cabinet to draw, before January 1, 2005, a federal register of persons entitled to welfare grants and services.
It also calls to quicken drafting federal bills for smoother compulsory social and health insurance. That will compensate public losses that may come as money grants replace a greater part of welfare privileges in kind, Mr. Mironov said.
