Oman's Ministry of Housing has handed over more than 22,000 plots for various purposes across the sultanate during the first half of 2018, said a report.

The lion's share of 19,000 plots went to the Dakhliyah governorate, of which more than 4,000 were residential plots, reported Muscat Daily.

This comes as part of the ministry's ambitious plan to distribute lands for various purposes, preservation and registration of property in accordance with the system through the Secretariat of the Land Registry, it stated.

The ministry provides three types of social housing programmes for low-income and social security families. These are free housing units; housing assistance (maintenance of old homes) and housing loans (to build a new home).

Last year, it had distributed more than 66,000 plots in different governorates, of which the total number of residential plots were 52,079.

Once again the largest number of plots (14,166) went to Dakhliyah governorate, said the Muscat Daily report.

A total of 414 commercial plots were distributed during the same period across the country with most of them (around 169) in the South Batinah governorate, it added.