Seyyid Hamid Pourmuhammadi, chief of the Budget and Planning Organization, told Tasnim—as reported by Kayhan—that other applicants requesting expanded food card support would be reviewed. Pourmuhammadi said verification and vetting of 44 million targeted recipients has begun, after which other applicants' situations will be examined and scarce resources directed to genuine need. Support will be approved only with verified information and met conditions, he added.
According to Kayhan, applicants notified by text message have been given extended registration and self-declaration deadlines, moving the food card expansion window to Monday; the prior announcement had set Friday (Mehr 24) as the cutoff. Hasan Navvab, director general of the Targeted Subsidies Organization, explained that self-declaration registration is sequenced by the last digit of the applicant's national ID: Saturday covers those ending 0-4, Sunday covers 5-9, and Monday opens to all remaining household heads without restrictions. Newly eligible households include those already receiving aid from the Welfare Committee and Welfare Organization, those with severe illness, families with severely disabled or malnourished children, female household heads without formal employment, non-salaried elderly household heads, school-age children, and those with no property or vehicle and monthly bank transactions under 20 million tomans.
The same day, Khabaronline—citing the Targeted Subsidies Organization—reported that the October 188th tranche of cash assistance had been deposited to 10,468,618 household heads, totaling 113.551 trillion rials and available for withdrawal. The report noted that the payments were processed with deductions for Arbain credit, coronavirus credit, and installment purchase debt, and that according to the Labor and Welfare Ministry's income categorization, tiers 1-3 contain a total of 28,470,013 individuals, receiving payment on the 25th of each month through 28 partner banks.
Context
The promise of expanded food card support represents a follow-up to the government's earlier move granting additional assistance to 11 million people while leaving other households in uncertainty (11 million people receive additional 500-thousand-tuman food card support; others remain uncertain). The October cash aid payment schedule had been announced earlier (October cash assistance to be paid in two tranches: dates and amounts by income tier). Both support programs are run by the Targeted Subsidies Organization; the timeline and amount for expanding food card support to the undefined number of other applicants remains unclear.
Kayhan wrote that the government struck out controversial preferential exchange rates but then offset the resulting damage through direct food card transfers to the population; however, the expansion conditions and criteria now announced struck the newspaper as "odd," damaging living conditions and public trust. Some experts and officials quoted in the report argued that during wartime, aid and food card payments should be prioritized, drawing resources from other budget lines if necessary. Under the government's new classification, households fall into three "high, medium, and low capacity" brackets; some criticized the criteria tied to income and banking transaction volume as unrealistic, particularly the 20-million-tuman monthly threshold.
On the cash assistance side, the Targeted Subsidies Organization previously announced that payments to non-tier-1-3 household heads occur on different days each month; today's 188th tranche covers only the three lowest income tiers, with deductions for debt applied before funds reach accounts. The simultaneous timing of two separate support programs shows the government managing multiple, independent mechanisms within its social assistance system all at once. The expansion promise notwithstanding, payment problems persisted a week later: as the government fell behind on what it owed merchants, many shops stopped accepting the food card altogether (related article).
