Deputies initiated systematizing transport benefits for children

The Parliamentary Committee on Social Policy and Healthcare has begun to develop a new law that will systematize all benefits for use of public transport for children and students under 23 years of age. The law on the republican budget for 2024 at the first stage enshrined all the existing benefits in the republic for travel on public transport for children, schoolchildren and students. The corresponding law-in-draft, developed by deputies of the Committee on Social Policy and Healthcare, was adopted by parliamentarians in the second final reading in the course of the plenary meeting.

The transport benefits have been enshrined in the Decree of the Government of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic until now. The decision to register them at the legislative level was made at one of the working meetings of representatives of the legislative and executive authorities. According to the authors of the law-in-draft, such legal regulation meets the requirements of Part 2 of Article 17 of the Constitution of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, according to which advantages and privileges can only be established by law and must comply with the principles of social justice.

Amendments were made to Article 56 of the Law of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic “On the Republican Budget for 2024”. The norms have been established at the legislative level according to which benefits for travel on public transport for the period of the academic year are provided to schoolchildren, university students, technical schools and colleges, as well as cadets and students of the Tiraspol Law Institute named after Kutuzov of the PMR Ministry of Internal Affairs. The discount on travel on urban and suburban routes is 50 percent, on intercity routes – 25 percent.

The law also established the right to free travel on public transport throughout the year for children under 7 years old, for Suvorov students and cadets. Amendments to the second reading established the right of free travel throughout the year for students of the state educational institution “Olympic Reserve School”. Such a benefit is not in the text of the relevant Government Resolution, but is enshrined in another article of the current version of the law on the republican budget, the Committee on Social Policy and Healthcare noted.

It was planned initially to consolidate travel benefits for children, schoolchildren and students in the relevant laws. However, it was decided in the process of working on the legislative initiative to develop a new law in which they would be spelled out.

Deputies of the relevant parliamentary committee plan to complete work on the new legislative initiative within a year, so that the new law will come into force on the 1st of January, 2025.