The head of state instructed the akimat of Astana to hold public hearings by the end of the year, develop a new General Plan of the capital and submit it to the Government.
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev held a meeting on the further development of the capital.
In his speech, the head of state noted that Astana occupies a special place in the life of the country. The city has certain requirements related not only to the economy, but also to architecture and urbanism, the spiritual and social sphere.
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev urged not to dwell on the results achieved and set a number of specific tasks for the development of the capital.
He considers it necessary to consistently develop the infrastructure of Astana. If the current pace of urbanization is maintained, the population of the capital can reach two million people by 2030.
"The city is growing rapidly, due to which many requirements of the Master Plan are systematically violated today. Therefore, the priority task is the comprehensive development of engineering infrastructure. However, there are certain problems in this direction. In particular, the akimat has not been able to commission CHP-3 for more than 10 years The completion date of the project was repeatedly postponed, which led to its rise in cost by 53 billion tenge.This issue was raised in 2019, but the readiness of the facility is still only 83%.As a result, the capital suffers from a shortage of heat energy exceeding 300 gigacalories. Akimat should ensure the commissioning of the first stage of CHPP-3 by the end of this year, as well as complete the construction of two gas boilers," the head of state stressed.
The President drew the attention of the meeting participants to other extremely important tasks - ensuring stable electricity supply and gasification of the city.
"In 2019, the first stage of the Saryarka gas pipeline was completed. The task of the akimat is to bring gas to residential areas where more than 300 thousand people live. Today, only about 8 thousand subscribers have organized gas supply. Due to the slow pace of gasification, the environment is deteriorating - in On frosty days, the smoke of stove heating forms a thick smog over the city. Earlier, I repeatedly gave instructions to complete the gasification of the capital. But the deadlines for its execution are constantly postponed," Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said.
According to him, the very connection of gas for citizens is expensive - up to two million tenge. And this situation has developed in all regions. The Agency for the Protection and Development of Competition, together with the Government, was instructed to make specific proposals to ensure transparent and understandable pricing for gas connection for the population. Many questions have accumulated in the field of housing construction.
"The problem of about four thousand equity holders is also on the agenda. The Akimat and the Government must solve it by the end of this year. At the same time, due to the weak legislative framework, new problematic objects may appear in the city. Currently, more than 90 residential complexes. Construction companies simply pay a small fine and continue to attract funds from citizens. The government should tighten state regulation measures. Developers should not be allowed to attract funds from equity holders bypassing the law. The Financial Monitoring Agency should be involved in this work," the president said.
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev pointed out that the authorized bodies receive many complaints regarding the lack of transparency in the allocation of land plots. We are talking about "special" conditions for well-known construction companies. He instructed to make this process completely open - to provide land through digital services and on a competitive basis.
Another important issue concerns the development of the transport system of the capital.
"The number of cars is growing every year. For this reason, traffic jams have become a very serious problem. This causes indignation among residents. For example, congestion constantly occurs on Mangilik El Avenue. The construction of a bridge on Tauelsizdik Avenue must be completed before the end of this year. In addition, the construction of a small bypass road (46 kilometers). When building new residential complexes, transport accessibility is not fully taken into account. In a word, work on the development of the transport system is lame," the head of state said.
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev instructed the capital's akimat to speed up work on the LRT construction project.
"I have already said that the LRT project was basically wrong. But now we have no other choice. We must implement this project. If we stop the construction of the LRT, the losses will be even greater. There is no other alternative," he said.
The President proposed to revise the Concept for the development of the urban environment. He believes that Astana lacks parks, few places for comfortable walks and recreation for residents. When building the city, the akimat missed these moments. Now the capital needs more public spaces, green spaces and pedestrian streets.
With the right approach, it can be transformed into a dynamic zone of attraction for citizens. It is necessary to develop a unified concept for the development of public spaces," Kassym-Jomart Tokayev emphasized.
The speech also touched upon the issues of the aesthetic appearance of the capital and infill development of residential areas. Another important issue is the construction of houses without parking lots.
"It has become unsafe to let children go outside - the yards are full of cars. It's time to stop building houses without parking lots! I instruct the Government to make an appropriate decision. There are also not enough parking spaces in the area of the House of Ministries. Citizens are forced to park cars where they have to, including in residential yards houses. This undoubtedly creates discomfort for residents of nearby residential complexes. At the same time, there is a free land plot between the Prosecutor General's Office and the Zhusan Bank building. An alternative option is the territory behind the Supreme Court building. I instruct the city akimat to consider the possibility of building a multi-level covered car parking and a pedestrian bridge at one of these sites," the head of state said.
The President criticized the situation with the improvement and lighting of the streets, as well as the poor organization of snow removal work. According to him, the slightest snowfall literally paralyzes the city. Recently, the capital actually turned into a real ice rink for several days. The head of state also pointed out the lack of a unified concept of greening the city.
"Each district akimat plants trees "to its own color and taste." What systemic work can we talk about if the city has not yet carried out an inventory of green spaces? The potential of the Zelenstroy nursery is not fully used. As a result, green spaces are dying due to for the lack of proper care. In addition, only 10% of perennial plants are used in landscaping the city. Inefficient spending on annual plants is an unacceptable luxury. I instruct the akimat to increase the planting of perennial plants to 50% within 3 years. I set a specific task - the capital within 5 years should become a garden city," Kassym-Jomart Tokayev instructed.
He called the work to improve the social well-being of citizens a priority. The government, together with the akimat, will have to take measures to address the issues of youth unemployment. Complaints continue to be received regarding the low quality and availability of medical services in the capital.
"Over the past 10 years, the population of Astana has increased by 2.5 times. The medical infrastructure has not kept pace with the growth in the population of the capital. There is a shortage of places in polyclinics, maternity hospitals and they are overloaded by 68%. Moreover, some hospitals do not meet elementary basic sanitary standards "Reception rooms in children's hospitals are not equipped. The children's trauma center is the only one in the capital, there are always a lot of patients. At the same time, Multidisciplinary Children's Hospital No. 3 operates only as an infectious disease. Until now, surgical, ophthalmological and trauma care has not been provided here. Such a state of affairs shameful for the capital. The Ministry of Health, together with the city administration, needs to resolve all the identified issues of children's medicine in the capital," the president said.
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev believes that Astana should attract talent, be the educational and intellectual center of the country. However, the city still has the problem of a shortage of school places and three-shift education, as well as a shortage of kindergartens. Today, 45,000 children are on the waiting list for places in preschool organizations.
Improving the quality of teaching staff should be at the forefront. In general, the education system of the city should move to the international level. So far, this trend has not been observed," the head of state noted.
The President believes that it is necessary to systematically increase the economic potential of Astana and the Astana agglomeration. To ensure the progressive economic growth of the capital, first of all, it is necessary to review the work of special economic zones.
they give up and leave. As a result, Astana does not receive significant amounts of investment," Kassym-Jomart Tokayev pointed out problematic issues.
In his opinion, an extremely urgent problem for the city is high inflation. According to the results of last year, the price growth here reached 23%. This is one of the worst figures in the country. Food products in Astana have risen in price by an average of a quarter over the year. The akimat has ceased to form reserves in the stabilization fund and switched to issuing preferential loans to retail chains as part of a "turnaround scheme." 14 billion tenge has been allocated, which is the largest figure among the regions.
"Obviously, the measures taken are not effective enough. For years it has been talked about the development of a food belt around the capital, but this work has not been done. Astana produces food 4 times less than Almaty, and 2 times less than Shymkent. In general, in In terms of all regions, the city ranks last in this indicator. Over the past 8 years, food imports to the capital have increased 3 times. Basically, we are talking about products that can be produced here. At the same time, local processing enterprises are only half loaded. The situation is aggravated by the lack of premises for storage of vegetables.Therefore, by 2025, more than 13,000 tons of vegetable storage capacity should be commissioned in the city.The Ministry of Agriculture, together with the akimats of Astana and the Akmola region, should take effective measures to form a food belt around the capital," the president said.
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev called the systematic development of the Astana agglomeration a strategically important direction.
The speech noted the need to stimulate close trade, economic, transport and logistics cooperation between the capital and suburbs. The placement of new industrial enterprises and infrastructure facilities in them will contribute to increasing the potential of the villages near the capital. This will smooth out the existing imbalance between the standard of living in Astana and nearby settlements.
"The akims of Astana and the Akmola region need to make efforts to improve the well-being of the population living in the suburbs. The Astana agglomeration should be as comfortable as possible for attracting investments, introducing innovations and the labor of qualified specialists. It is necessary to intensify work in this direction. At the current stage, when cardinal changes are taking place in the global economy, this is a very topical issue. We must seize this historic opportunity to make the capital region the economic backbone of our country," the head of state said.
He believes that the capital should switch to a new development model, transform into an innovative city of the future. New digital approaches to city management are being intensively introduced in the world, which should be paid attention to.
"I specifically met with the leaders of the G42 company in the United Arab Emirates. This company is a leader in the development of artificial intelligence. They are ready to present us their achievements in this area as part of the Smart City project. I instruct the Akimat, together with the Ministry of Digital Development, to immediately begin this work "In general, it is necessary to attract representatives of the IT business and qualified specialists in this field. Thus, our capital will become the center of the region's Digital nomads. We must develop Astana on the principle of a creative, comfortable and clean city. We must effectively apply all the best world experience" , Kassym-Jomart Tokayev emphasized.
According to him, it is urgent to modernize the capital and revise its development strategy.
"This document should define the main directions of the integrated development of the city. By the end of this year, the Akimat of Astana needs to hold public hearings, develop a new General Plan of the capital and submit it to the Government. The Presidential Administration will take control of the timely and high-quality execution of work," summed up his speech by the president.
Astana Mayor Zhenis Kasymbek, First Deputy Prime Minister Roman Sklyar, Deputy Prime Minister Altai Kulginov spoke during the meeting.
By the Kazakhstanskaya Pravda
