Soviet demands more houses

Press, 17 March 1983, Page 7

Soviet demands more houses

NZPA Moscow Leaders of the Soviet Parliament yesterday demanded that Government agencies take steps to tighten worker discipline, build more housing, and meet industrial construction goals, Tass reports. The 38-member Praesidium of the Supreme Soviet, executive committee of the national Parliament, had met to discuss various “questions of public life” and recommend solutions, the official news agency said.

“The Praesidium passed a decision making it incumbent upon the Ministries and

departments of the U.S.S.R. to ensure implementation of proposals from the permanent commissions and deputies” of the 1500 member Supreme Soviet, it said. The First Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Geidar Aliev, a member of the Communist Party's ruling Politburo, had reviewed the Supreme Soviet’s proposals for meeting targets for 1983. “Special attention was paid to solving the key problems of economic and social policy of the party: intensification of public production, complex development of the peoples’ economy, increasing efficiency

of capital investments improvement of transport, strengthening order and discipline and improvement of style and methods of management,” Tass said. The Praesidium had said, “a number of Ministries and organisations were slow in introducing proposals and comments of permanent commissions and deputies.” Government councils (soviets) in the Ukraine had been singled out for “feeble support” of Parliamentary directives and failing to “strengthen discipline and organisation in all links of production and management.”

The Communist Party chief. Yuri Andropov, has led a crackdown on lazy workers and inefficient managers in a drive to boost industrial output since taking over from the late Leonid Brezhnev on November 12. The Praesidium had adopted a decree to speed up construction of public housing and ' communal buildings for the ,1983 portion of the current five year plan, with “special attention to building in rural areas primarily on the non-black soil zone of; the Russian Republic, regions of Siberia, and. the Far East.”