Economy Ministry reports allocations for children's programs

The implementation of the federal task program 'Children of Russia' willrequire a little more than 20bn rubles ($633m) over the next three years, areport of the Russian Economic Development and Trade Ministry says. Thereport was elaborated on for the Cabinet meeting to be held on August 27.The program will be implemented in 2003-2006, and it will need allocationsfrom the federal budget (6.737bn rubles, or $213m) and regional budgets(13.417bn rubles, or $425m).The federal task program is aimed at improving the health of children,supporting gifted children and solving the problems of homeless andneglected children. In addition, the above funds will be spent onallowances to orphans and disabled children. According to information from the Economy Ministry, there are 103,000homeless and 1 million neglected children registered in Russia. Under-agechildren commit about 300,000 crimes a year and the rate of drug addictionamong children saw a 17-fold increase over the past ten years..