The government has called for completing the infrastructure for the Mehr Housing Project, for which “ten trillion rials ($323.8 million) will be raised through Islamic bonds and will be given to the Ministry of Energy to finalize electricity and water supply systems,” the deputy minister of roads and urban development, Ahmad Asghari Mehrabadi.
“As part of two other plans the Ministry of Energy will receive 4 trillion rials ($129.5 million) and 2.5 trillion rials ($80.9 million) to further develop infrastructure for the project,” he was quoted as saying by the ministry’s news website on Wednesday.
Lack of infrastructure development has been a major impediment of the multi-billion dollar low-cost housing scheme launched by the previous administration. The Minister of Roads and Urban Development Abbas Akhoundi has said that the new units would be delivered only after infrastructure is complete.
His ministry will deliver 300,000 housing units by the end of the Iranian fiscal year that ends in March 2017. “The government has delivered an average of 240,000 housing units per year,” Asghari Mehrabadi said.
Most of the remaining flats are in the final stages of completion.
“Agent banks have agreed to finance 2.5 million housing units,” he said. “So far a total of 467 trillion rials ($15.12 billion) has been paid by banks.”
One quadrillion rials ($34.3 billion) has been spent on the project so far, land prices excluded, Asghari Mehrabadi added.
The ministry this week delivered 4,550 housing units in Pardis Township, Tehran Province, equipped with all the basic infrastructure. It is trying to complete four other phases of the Mehr Housing Projects in Pardis, in east Tehran, by the end of summer.
