Half of the residents of Tehran Province falls into the top income deciles of eight, nine and 10, so they are not eligible for Livelihood Assistance Program—the government’s recent cash payment in compensation for the rise in gasoline prices, says Nematollah Torki, the head of Tehran Province’s Plan and Budget Organization.
Income deciles are groupings that result from ranking either all households or all persons in the population in the ascending order based on income, and then dividing the population into 10 groups, each comprising approximately 10% of the estimated population.
Four million out of 4.5 million households living in Tehran receive monthly payments as per the Targeted Subsidies Law of 2010, which authorized the reduction of food and energy subsidies, and instead allowed the payment of 455,000 rials to each and every Iranian on a monthly basis, he added.
The list of recipients of cash handouts have been narrowed down incrementally ever since the implementation of the program, but still about 90% of all Iranians are said to receive the monthly payments.
“Tehran’s population is currently growing at a rate of 1.7% while as many as 200,000-300,000 people are being added to the population of its suburban towns annually,” Torki was quoted as saying by ILNA.
The official said next year’s tax earnings (excluding customs revenues) have been set at 1,750 trillion rials ($13.67 billion), of which 760 trillion rials ($5.93 billion) will be generated in Tehran, adding that the figure shows an 18% rise compared with the current year’s projected tax revenues in Tehran.
Commenting on tax revenues in the current year, Torki said the government earned 680 trillion rials ($5.31 billion) in the first seven months of the current Iranian year (March 21-Oct. 22), of which 480 trillion rials ($3.75 billion) were generated in Tehran.
Value added tax earned during the last fiscal year (March 2018-19) in Tehran stood at 60 trillion rials ($468 million), of which 30 trillion rials ($234 million) were paid to Tehran Municipality for its transportation projects.
The government has set Tehran Province’s next fiscal year’s (March 2020-21) expenditure at 9,440 billion rials ($73.75 million), indicating a 21% rise compared with the current year
According to Torki, about 70 trillion rials ($547 million) of the province’s revenues from VAT in the current year will also be allocated to TM.
He noted that the government has set Tehran Province’s next fiscal year’s (March 2020-21) expenditure at 9,440 billion rials ($73.75 million), indicating a 21% rise compared with the current year.
As one of the appendices to the newly unveiled budget proposal for the next fiscal year (March 2020-21) suggests, the Iranian government is planning to create close to one million jobs by shoring up main sectors that drive economic growth. Investment in reviving neighborhoods struggling with urban decay, agriculture, tourism, knowledge-based companies, industry and mining, culture and arts, inter-city rail transport and improving policies related to labor market are eight sectors that the government will focus on to carry out its next year’s job creation plan.
“With budgetary allocation to the tune of 50 trillion rials [$390 million from banks resources, about 126,000 of these job opportunities will be created in Tehran as envisioned in the budget bill for next year,” the official said.
Tehran Province, wherein lies the capital city, registered an unemployment rate of 12.6% in the last fiscal year (March 2018-19).
The abovementioned rate is for urban areas of the province. As for its rural areas, the unemployment rate stood at 7.2%.
A total of 564,695 people [or 12.2%] were unemployed and 4,048,324 [or 87.8%] were employed in Tehran Province during the last Iranian year that ended March 20, 2019,” the deputy head of Tehran Plan and Budget Organization, Masoud Afshin, was quoted as saying by ILNA.
“Tehran’s working age population, those above 10 years old, stood at 11,591,977 of its total population of 13.63 million [85%] in the last Iranian year,” he added.
According to Afshin, Tehran’s labor force participation population was 4,613,019 (or 39.8%), noting that the number of people outside the labor force (economically inactive), including homemakers, students and those who had a source of income without having a job in Tehran, stood at 6,978,958 (or 60.2%).
“Tehran Province has a 20% share from Iran’s total industrial production units,” Yadollah Sadeqi, the head of Tehran Industries, Mining, and Trade Organization, said.
Tehran also accounts for 17.6% and 6.8% of Iran’s industrial output and gross domestic product respectively.
Home to more than 12 million people, the capital Tehran is one of the most polluted cities whose problem mainly stems from the 3-5 million cars that ply its streets and contribute a whopping 70-80% of pollution to the city’s environmental woes.
