TEHRAN - Iran has built 17 dams during the past one and a half years, the managing director of Iran Water Sources Management stated.

 

“According to the fifth five-year development plan, which started in March 2011, one dam should be built each month,” the IRNA News Agency quoted Mohammad Haj-Rasouliha as saying.

 

Some 36 billion rials (around $3 billion) has been allocated for dam building, he noted.

 

Some 3 billion cubic meters of surface waters in Iran are being reserved behind dams, Energy Minister Majid Namjou said in June.

 

He told the IRNA News Agency that 75-80 percent of surface waters are poured into the dams.

 

Iran ranks first in the region and third in world in terms of dam construction industry, First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi announced last year.

 

He added that currently contractors are building 135 new dams across the country and also doing several projects in other countries.  

 

In July 2011, Iran celebrated self-sufficiency in dam construction by inaugurating the Karun-4 dam, the largest concrete dam in Iran, which has been completely designed and constructed by domestic engineers.