At the extraordinary session of the National Assembly convened today, on the proposal of Deputy Minister of Environment Gayane Gabrielyan, the draft law "On Amendments and Additions to the RA Water Code" with the attached package was discussed.
According to the Deputy Minister, the development of a draft with a legislative package follows from the government's program for 2021-2026 and its adoption aims to preserve the national water reserve by creating appropriate mechanisms for water resources management, meeting the needs of citizens and the economy in the necessary quantity and quality of water through effective management of useful water resources, preventing deterioration of the status of surface and underground water bodies, improving and restoring the status of highly modified water bodies, ensuring environmental sustainability of the environment.
The package defined the basic concepts and fixed the settings.
In particular, the concept of integrated water resources management was defined, since one of the main ideas of the RA Water Code is the principle of integrated water resources management implemented by all progressive countries, and the transition to this principle.
Five surface water quality statuses are fixed: "excellent status of a water body", "good status of a water body", "mediocre status of a water body", "poor status of a water body", "low status of a water body" depending on the physico-chemical, hydromorphological and biological characteristics of a water body.
Legal relations related to the revision of the permit for free water use, water use are regulated.
The principle of ensuring equal access to water supply and drainage is fixed, which will ensure equal access for persons.
Without their availability, the water use permit is considered invalid.
In his speech, NA Deputy Vigen Khachatryan, stressing the need for the presented package, noted that this is an issue that should have been discussed for a long time with the participation of interested parties. "This is an issue that we should not solve on our own, without clarifying the attitude of the relevant interested organizations, including communities".
In his final speech, the Deputy Minister stressed that the above-mentioned project had been circulating in the relevant departments for 1.5 years, there were many internal discussions, it was also discussed in various commissions of the National Assembly, there were also public hearings and coordination meetings-discussions with international donor partners.