Muscat: Dr Khalfan bin Said Al Shuaili, Minister of Housing and Urban Planning said that 16,300 applications on proof of ownership and registration of property have been decided on.
Of these, the applications approved stood at 8, 800 while those rejected totalled 7, 500.
This announcement was made during the Second Media Dialogue for Comprehensive Transformation, organised at Oman International Convention and Exhibitions Centre.
The Ministry also reviewed the benchmarks of the executive plan of 2022, the performance indicators and the challenges facing urban development in the Sultanate of Oman.
The minister of housing and urban planning said that the value of real estate traded during 2021 rose by 4 per cent to reach OMR2.552 billion while the revenues reached OMR72.5 million.
The minister added that the number of usufruct (land lease) contracts in 2021 stood at 9,300 and the fees collected amounted to OMR8. 400 million.
He said that 16 sites with a total area of 597 million square metres for projects of food security have been approved, 7,645 land plots have been earmarked and five new sites have been allocated within the project of residential districts with integrated services.
The minister pointed to that there were 2,000 families that benefited from housing relief support in 2021 at a cost of OMR47 million and 700 residential units have been executed.
As many as 713 cases have been exempted from fees for a total of OMR13. 5 million by Royal Directives, he said adding that payment of loans for 544 cases affected with Tropical Cyclone Shaheen has been postponed for six months.
Forty field visits had been made during the Tropical Cyclone Shaheen and 328 cases have been approved for housing relief, he added.
Nearly 85 per cent of the project for shifting citizens whose property were affected with the activities of Sohar Industrial Port (Liwa Model City), have been completed, he said pointing to that the cash compensation amounted to 85 per cent, the land compensation to 97 per cent.
There are 476 residential units under construction, he added.
On the compensations of Al Batinah Coastal Road Project, he said that the course of Phase I (Barka-Al Musana-Liwa-Shinas) has been assigned to the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology.
As for the second Phase II of the project (Al Suwaiq-Al Khaboura-Saham-Sohar) 96 per cent of compensations for houses have been completed and 58 per cent of compensations for farms and cash compensations of 84 per cent have been completed.
The number of residential lands distributed and registered with the Ministry up to 2020 amounted to 1. 319 million land plots, he said.
The minister pointed out that the trial operation of Amlak (property) platform for integrated digital services would begin today (Tuesday).
The platform hosts 50 eServices related to real estate development and services for citizens and investors among other services.
