Tehran, Iran, April 21
By Milad Fashtami - Trend:
Iran is not happy with the high number of registered applicants for receiving cash subsidies.
Vice President for Executive Affairs Mohammad Shariatmadari said that daily some 2 to 4.2 million people registered their names to receive cash subsidies, Iran's Fars News Agency reported on April 21.
Registration to identify families, who are eligible to receive cash subsidy, started on April 9 and run till April 20.
"The number of people who actually gave up receiving cash subsidies was not satisfactory," Shariatmadari said.
"Only a small portion of people announced that their monthly income is more than 25 million rials (some $781 based on the exchange rate of USD at the free market)," he added.
Iranian media outlets reported that most of the registered applicants have announced that their income is less than 6 million rials per month (some $188 based on the exchange rate of USD at the free market).
According to Shariatmadari, all the people who registered their name will receive the cash subsidy this month.
The administration of former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad implemented the first stage of the subsidy reform plan toward the end of 2010 in an attempt to wean the country off food and fuel subsidies.
In the first stage the government paid 45,500 rials (about $18) to citizens to compensate for a partial cut of subsidies.
It is estimated that the government will acquire 480 trillion rials (about $19.3 billion) in the current Iranian calendar year (March 2014-March 2015) in revenues through the implementation of the second phase of the economic reform plan.
On February 16, MPs approved a bill according to which cash payments in the second phase will only be given to low-income families.
The parliament gave the administration authority to decide the amount of cash subsidy payments that will be given to the selected groups.