TEHRAN – The Welfare Organization will provide 35,169 residential units for the underprivileged families across the country over the current [Iranian calendar] year (started March 20), IRNA reported on Wednesday.

Also, the construction of 10,000 housing units will also begin this year, Zolfaqar Yazdanmehr, deputy head of the Organization said.

In the Iranian calendar years of 1398 (March 2019- March 2020) and 1399 (March 2020-March 2021), 14,700 and 16,500 residential units have been provided to the deprived, respectively, he noted.

Earlier in April, some 5,700 residential units were inaugurated and provided to deprived families residing in rural areas of the southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan province.

These units have been built under a joint memorandum of understanding between the Management and Planning Organization and the Housing Foundation to build 115,000 residential units for low-income families across the country.

----------Development of deprived areas

Currently, 26 percent of the country's population lives in villages, around 39,000 villages have more than 20 households and 23,000 villages have less than 20 households.

Thus, more than 97 percent of the country's rural population lives in villages with over 20,000 households.

Many efforts have been made over the past couple of years by the government to support villagers and slow down the trend of migration from rural areas to cities.

Rural tourism, agritourism, religious tourism, and ecotourism are alternatives or complementary economic activities that could further stimulate rural development while decreasing rural community dependency on one main economic sector (agriculture, forestry, energy, or mining).

Mohammad Omid, the vice president for rural development, said in November 2020 that for the first time in the country, the migration of people from rural areas to cities has reached zero.

A total of 220 trillion rials (nearly $5.6 billion) has been approved for the development of villages in the current year (March 2020-March 2021), Omid said.

Some 140 trillion rials (about $3.3 billion) have so far been spent, he noted, adding, the unemployment rate in rural areas has reached 7.4 percent, which has decreased by over one percent compared to last year.

In October 2020, Omid stated that the rural development projects worth 130 trillion rials (nearly $3 billion) inaugurated on the occasion of the National Day of Villagers and Nomads.

He went on to state that 6,750 construction projects will come on stream in various fields such as roads, communications, etc. In addition, a total of 26,512 projects will be launched throughout the country.

FB/MG