Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- On 19 November 2020, a meeting of the Committee on Defense and Security of the Senate of the Oliy Majlis of the Republic of Uzbekistan was held in the form of video conference. It was attended by members of the Senate, representatives of ministries and departments, experts and media workers.

During the meeting, the issues that are planned to be considered at the ninth plenary session of the upper house of parliament were preliminary discussed, including the Law of the Republic of Uzbekistan "On State Genomic Registration"

The law introduces a number of innovations. In particular, the Law specifies the concepts of biological material, state genomic registration, information about the genome and its processing, a unified database of genomic information, forensic biological examination of human DNA, human biological relatives.

In addition, the Law stipulates that state genomic registration is carried out in the form of voluntary and mandatory state genomic registration, and also provides for the basic requirements for obtaining, processing and protecting genomic information.

At the meeting, the issue of sending a parliamentary request to the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Uzbekistan on the state of implementation of legislation on ensuring the safety of settlements and economic facilities located in the mountainous and foothill areas of the country, where there is a danger of floods, mud flows, landslides, was preliminary discussed.

It was noted that the analysis of dialogue with the population, citizens' appeals, field studies, the state of implementation of legislation in this area and law enforcement practice show that there are still a number of systemic problems and shortcomings.

Due to the lack of full efficient and effective control over the resettlement of citizens living in hydrometeorological and geologically hazardous territories of the country, it was revealed that despite the fact that 117 out of 602 farms in hydrometeorological and geologically dangerous territories and 624 out of 2,476 citizens living in these farms, need relocation to safe areas for permanent residence, only in the first ten months of 2020, only 59 people from 9 households were relocated to safe areas for permanent residence. The rest of the households were relocated to safer places for temporary residence. This means that temporarily resettled citizens will return to the danger zone and continue to live there.

There are facts when a formal approach is observed and the representations and instructions made by the employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the State Service of the Republic of Uzbekistan for monitoring hazardous geological processes to the heads of the responsible bodies are not fully implemented in order to protect against floods, mudflows, landslides of settlements and economic objects located in hydrometeorological and geological hazardous areas of the country.

6 out of 41 prescriptions introduced in 2020 by employees of the State Service for Monitoring Hazardous Geological Processes were not fulfilled, and 18 were partially fulfilled.

The arbitrary illegal extraction of sand and gravel from rivers and streams led to the fact that the bottom of the river and stream deepened, water flows accelerated. The change in the river bottom led to the erosion of the banks, the collapse of the dam, the destruction of the pillars of the bridge, which endangers the dwelling houses of the population living near the river bank, and economic objects, automobile bridges prematurely fall into disrepair.

As a result of illegal extraction of sand and gravel in river beds flowing through the territory of Andijan, Namangan, Samarkand, Jizzakh, Kashkadarya, Surkhandarya, Tashkent and Syrdarya regions, about 300 houses of the population are under threat. In addition, there are problems with the repair and rehabilitation of internal bridges on local roads affected by floods and mudflows.

In this regard, the senators emphasized the expediency of sending a parliamentary request to the Cabinet of Ministers on the state of implementation of legislation on ensuring the safety of settlements and economic facilities located in the mountainous and foothill areas of the country, where there is a danger of floods, mud flows, landslides.

The meeting also focused on the report of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Uzbekistan on the progress of the implementation of the State Program for the implementation of the Action Strategy in the "Year of Science, Education and the Digital Economy" during the nine months of 2020.

An appropriate decision of the Committee was made on the issues considered.