TEHRAN — The Iranian government has started handing out food packages for millions of its citizens both to help those with low income and to try to lower inflation on food, local news media reported on Monday.

Across the capital, Tehran, and in the rest of the country, long lines of people waited in government-owned department stores, where the food is being distributed. President Hassan Rouhani has said the handouts are intended to “ease the pressure” on Iranians and demonstrate some of the immediate benefits from the recent interim nuclear agreement with world powers.

All government employees and citizens making less than 5 million rials, or $170, a month are eligible to receive the food package, which contains more than 20 pounds of rice from India, two frozen chickens from Turkey, three dozen eggs, more than two quarts of vegetable oil and two packs of processed cheese.

Over 15 million families will receive the free food, the reformist newspaper Shargh wrote on Monday. Both the rice and most of the chickens have been imported as part of barter trades for oil and gas, said a government official who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. Inflation, which stood at 42 percent when Mr. Rouhani took office in August, has gone down to 37 percent, the government says.