Iran has approved a housing scheme that will provide six million homes to its underprivileged population, local reports have said.
The decision came from the country’s Constitutional Council, which is tasked with finalizing parliament legislation, said the local reports.
Constitutional Council spokesman Hadi Tahan Nazif was quoted by the reports as saying that the council had voted for the Leap in Housebuilding Motion put forward by the parliament in July.
Nazif said the motion, which had been rejected in a first debate earlier this month, passed the council after it was modified by the parliament.
The motion seeks to give the Iranian administration resources needed to build 6 million affordable houses in Iran.
It comes in line with promises by Iran’s new President Ebrahim Raisi to build 4 million houses until the end of his term in 2025.
The parliament motion stipulates that the government should provide 60 percent of the funds needed to build a housing unit while offering cheap loans and empty plots of lands to builders and developers.
Mahmoud Shayan, the CEO of Iran’s Housing Bank, which is known locally as Bank Maskan, has said the target set by Raisi for building 1 million affordable houses per year was “realistic.”
Shayan said Iran’s budget law for the year to March 2021 obliges the banking system in the country to provide 3,600 trillion rials ($12.85 billion) in cheap loans to help meet a target of building 1.2 million houses over the fiscal period.
“If the banks avoid increasing the share of housing loans from their credits, they will be forced to pay more taxes for their increased deposits in the central bank,” said Shayan.
