The plan was in line with the impending execution of subsidy reform bill supposed to pay low income families, compensating a sharp increase in the price of energy carriers.
This week, the head of the Iran Statistics Center, Madad announced that people sent 34 million short text messages by their mobile phones to be informed about the clusters classification they were put in.
The center has reciprocally sent back the same number of messages.
Therefore it can be estimated that almost 68 text messages have been sent and received. Based on the tariffs of Iran's telecommunication company, the clusters plan which finally proved inconclusive has cost almost 6,050 million rials (605,000 US dollars) only in terms of mobile short messages expense.
Although seemingly people will pay the first half of this price directly through their mobile phone bills, but the second half is also paid through national revenues and actually they must shoulder the burden.
Under the clusters classification plan Iran's society was divided into three clusters. The first and second clusters include the lower decimal groups in terms of monthly income and the third cluster comprises the top three decimal groups.
But the classification provoked much debate and dissatisfaction among Iranian people forcing the government to nullify the entire clusters plan. It had already consumed a huge budget for providing special forms filled by people and examined by the officials.
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