President Vladimir Putin said Monday that pensions must be increased by at least 200 rubles starting on March 1, 2005, according to the Interfax news agency.

"Pensions must be increased not by 100 rubles from April 1, as planned earlier, but by 200 rubles as a minimum from March 1," Putin told the Cabinet on Monday.

Expressing the dissatisfaction with the work of implementing the law on the replacement of social benefits with cash payments, Putin said "the government and the regions have not fully accomplished the task we were talking about: while making decisions we must not worsen the position of those in need of state aid."

Minister of Health and Social Development Mikhail Zurabov believes it is possible to increase pensions by 240 rubles, the Itar-Tass news agency said.

At the cabinet meeting in the Kremlin, Putin ordered the Finance Ministry and the Pension Fund "to ensure an accelerated indexation of pensions."

Recently, the storm of pensioners' protests against the ending of Soviet-era benefits hit many cities and towns in Russia, as a new law approved by the government took effect Jan. 1, which replaces free transport rides and subsidized medicines, utilities and telephone costs with meager cash payments for millions of pensioners.

Source: Xinhua