TEHRAN – Head of Iran’s Planning and Budget Organization (PBO) estimated the total direct and indirect subsides which the government is going to pay to people in the next Iranian calendar year (March 2020-March 2021) to be 3.02 quadrillion rials (about $71.9 billion), IRIB reported.

Speaking on the sidelines of a budget planning meeting on Monday, the official said of the mentioned figure 800 trillion rials (over $19 billion) will be paid as direct subsidy to more than 90 percent of all Iranians, 300 trillion rials more than the figure for the current year.

The Iranian government has started a plan for managing fuel consumption by rationing the subsidized gasoline and increasing fuel prices as it plans to pay the revenue to underprivileged families in the form of direct subsidy.

Earlier this week, Nobakht announced that all the proceeds from the price hikes would be used to fund additional subsidies for 18 million underprivileged families, or about 60 million people.

As part of the Subsidy Reform Plan, the previous government removed some subsidies in 2010 and paid 455,000 rials (nearly $10 based on the official rate of 42000 rials per dollar) to each and every Iranian on a monthly basis. 

The controversial plan has been retained by the administration of President Hassan Rouhani.

EF/MA