ISFAHAN (IRNA) -- Employers of illegal foreign workers will have to pay heavy cash fines as of next Iranian calendar year (starts March) if they continue to recruit the laborers.

Head of the Labor and Technical and Vocational Training Organization in Isfahan province Morteza Mandani told IRNA that based on an Interior Ministry announcement the employers would pay cash fine of 300,000 rials per each day of the foreign worker's work, which would double on the second day of his/her work.

The violator would be sentenced to 91 to 180 days in prison in case of continuing to recruit the illegal foreigners, he added.

The official said that illegal workers would have to refer to branches of the Ministry's Bureau for Aliens and Foreign Immigrant Affairs (BAFIA) in provinces by March 2008 to arrange their legal and easy departure.

Citing articles from the Constitution which specify penalties for illegal profession of the individuals, Mandani said under a project, in effect from November 2006 to March 2008, foreign nationals holding valid residence permits or passports are and would be given licenses for engagement only in the tough jobs, including in the sewage treatment, brick baking, fertilizer production, animal husbandry, stone cutting and the like.

He said that under the Foreign Workers' Registration Project some 22,147 such workers have been identified and registered since November. Permits have been issued for 2,500 of the workers and about 1,300 more are in the process, he added.

Mandani added that 369 violator employers have been referred to the judicial authorities for investigation into their offenses, 15 of them being sentenced to jail terms.

He said that illegal workers have under the project been replaced by 2,177 Iranians.

Meanwhile, head of the BAFIA's Isfahan branch Hematyar told IRNA that about 70,000 foreign nationals, lacking residence permit, live in Isfahan province.