The right on inactivity: why Gazprom refuses to inspect gas equipment

The fact is that people buy "gas meters" in stores, but the gas workers have to maintain the "metering devices" only.

Oleg Goryunov

Domestic gas explosions always lead to grave consequences: they claim human lives, destroy capital structures - apartment buildings, as recently happened in Yaroslavl.

On August 21, three died there: two adults and an eight-year-old child. The Investigative Committee opened a criminal case under article 238 of the Criminal Code -"providing services that do not meet security requirements".

And who provides these services? Specialized organizations, even in the names of which there is a mention of Gazprom.

The Yaroslavl story and other similar stories are well known to the retired EMERCOM Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Voronin, but the pensioner did not even suspect that, having served, he would again be on the "front line" - he personally faced the fact that the specialized organization of JSC Gazprom Gazoraspredelenie Maikop For three years now she has been refusing to service his gas equipment, and neither the courts, nor the prosecutor - no one has the right to force her to do this, since from a formal point of view, Gazprom has a "right to inaction":

“In the legislation there is no word“ meter”, but only“ metering device. ”And in the passport of the“ meter ”, there is no word“ metering device”. According to the order of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation of January 21, 2011 N 57, the "meter" should consist of a "system" for remote reading, for example, via the Internet. The meter must also have a "meter". But this order is not registered with the Ministry of Justice of Russia, therefore, it is not mandatory for execution. Accordingly, the "counters" produced by the industry, according to their passport, do not have a "meter". Therefore, gas meters do not fall into the category of gas equipment subject to maintenance, since according to clause 2 of Rules 410, only the “metering device” of the meter should be serviced, and according to the documents, it is not there! Thus, the gas workers refuse to service the "meter", and if the boiler's automation switches off in the event of a malfunction, then there is no such protection in the gas meter, and it is never serviced, therefore, gas explosions may occur".

Some kind of nonsense - the first thing that comes to mind when listening to Alexander Voronin. However, the attempt of "NI" to understand this issue led to the conclusion that the former lieutenant colonel of the Ministry of Emergency Situations is not sounding the alarm in vain: it is very likely that a hole in the legislation of the Russian Federation is beneficial to a huge number of interested parties, and allows them not only to mock a person, who for 3 years cannot use the gas supplied to his house, but also accuse him of improper maintenance of gas equipment, which entails the imposition of large fines ... In addition, everyone remembers well what leads to "the provision of services that do not meet safety requirements ".

So that the reader can decide for himself how justified such a conclusion is, we will tell in detail the story of Alexander Ivanovich.

It all started in 2017, when gas was supplied to the house of the retired lieutenant colonel, in the Republic of Adygea, Gazprom Mezhregiongaz Maikop LLC is doing this.

Alexander Ivanovich took the matter seriously. I ordered a project for the installation of gas equipment in advance, and then, as expected, coordinated it with Gazprom Gazoraspredelenie Maikop, here is this document:

Already in this document a time bomb is planted, namely: it says that in the future the customer of the project is obliged to conclude a contract for the maintenance of "gas pipelines and gas equipment".

The catch lies in the fact that the meter is not gas equipment, gas workers know this, but Alexander Voronin did not know:

“It was then I started to understand all this. In the list of goods of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, allowed for sale, there is no “meter”, but only a “counter”. However, the project spoke only of the counter, and even its name was indicated: VK-G 4 T, I bought it, and the gas workers installed it for me, "says Alexander Voronin.

All the time, while Gazprom was pulling the gas pipeline to Voronin's house, Alexander Ivanovich was engaged in reissuing documents for the house - from his sister he passed into his property.

The sister of the retired lieutenant colonel of the Ministry of Emergency Situations managed to conclude a maintenance contract, this happened back in the spring of 2017. The contract was concluded for a period of three years, but, according to Alexander, "the annual maintenance has never been performed, although the first time it was supposed to happen on the day of the gas launch - June 9, 2017".

On June 20, gas workers again came to Voronin's house, their specialist drew up an Act of sealing the meter, here it is:

This document is also interesting: it simultaneously speaks of sealing both the meter and the meter, but most importantly, the future subscriber of Gazprom Mezhregiongaz Maikop LLC is warned of liability for violation of the rules for maintaining gas equipment...

So what was installed in A. Voronin's house: a meter that no one is obliged to maintain, or is it a metering device?

"You see, each meter has a metering device. The meter itself should consist of it and a means of delivering information about meter readings via the Internet", - A. Voronin explained to NI.

According to our laws, gas can be used only after the conclusion of a maintenance contract, not earlier.

But by chance or not, it turned out that the retired lieutenant colonel of the Ministry of Emergency Situations received the first gas bill even when he had not signed a maintenance contract, and when there were only zeros on his meter... the amount in the receipt was about 2 thousand rubles.

Alexander Ivanovich started to sort it out, write requests to JSC Gazprom Gas Distribution Mike and LLC Gazprom Mezhregiongaz Mike, and then it turned out that no one was going to conclude an agreement with him, and no one was even going to do an initial inspection of the equipment...

It should be noted that both of these organizations are headed by the same person, his name is Igor Viktorovich Syrchin.

Alexander Voronin tried to come to an agreement with Igor Syrchin, proposed an additional agreement on the settlement of the conflict, in which he asked to recognize his meter as a metering device and finally start serving it, but that was not the case - even the courts, various ministries and departments, all are on the side Gazprom.

"Not a single judge has yet made a decision in favor of the user, because seals are placed on the meter. There is no word meter in the rules. There is only the 57th order of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, but it is not approved by the Ministry of Justice - a vicious circle, mutual guarantee! they need to draw up an Act on readiness for connection, but even the court refuses to sign this act. Only we in Adygea had more than a thousand such complaints. Nobody wants to solve this problem, but Gazprom has the opportunity to fine us - consumers", - the pensioner is indignant.

Alexander Voronin is convinced that not to conclude an agreement with gas consumers, from the economic point of view, is much more profitable than concluding - the fines are many times greater than the regular payment of bills.

On the television of Adygea, stories were told more than once about local residents who received inflated payments for gas, and about how employees of JSC Gazprom Gazoraspredelenie Maikop deliberately damaged the seals, and how other Gazprom employees came for them, established the "fact" of violation and imposed fines - all this was, but nothing changes.

In order to avoid fines, and most importantly, violations of the rules for using gas, retired retired EMERCOM lieutenant colonel Alexander Ivanovich Voronin chops wood on his site for the third year in a row to heat his house.

Perhaps the controversial issue could have been resolved in a way known in Russia ... but this is not his method.

Sadly, but true - Alexander Ivanovich fell into the trap of the letter of the Law, which he himself set: he fought and fights all his life for the observance of the rule of law, and according to the Law, if you have not concluded an agreement with Gazprom, you will not have gas, whatever you want, then and do it.

But something needs to be done: the statistics of domestic gas explosions in Russia are not comforting. However, the attempt made by the Government of the Russian Federation to put things in order in this area is about the changes made to the rules for servicing gas equipment, which now HAVE to be inspected once a year, and not once every three years, as it was before, until it yielded results.

As a result, as before, after the explosions in residential buildings, investigators initiate criminal cases "for the provision of services that do not meet security requirements", but punish the "scapegoats" for this, leaving the SYSTEM of impunity and irresponsibility in complete peace.