TEHRAN – Iranian Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian said on Tuesday 330 trillion rials (about $7.85 billion) worth of major energy projects are going to be inaugurated across the country by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March, 19).

“We have plans to inaugurate 227 water and electricity projects, with 330 trillion rials of investment, in the remaining two months of the current Iranian calendar year,” Ardakanian told IRNA on the sidelines of the Islamic Revolution celebrations on Tuesday.

According to the official, so far more than 143 projects, have been inaugurated with 220 trillion rials (about $5.2 billion) of investment in the current calendar year (started on March 21, 2019).

All the mentioned projects have gone on stream as part of a major program called A-B-Iran which the energy ministry is pursuing seriously.

Under the A-B-Iran scheme [the acronyms A and B stand for water, electricity in Persian], during the current Iranian calendar year (March 2019-March 2020), 10 trillion rials (over $238 million) of projects will be inaugurated in each of the country’s provinces, on average.  

Based on this program, Energy Ministry plans to inaugurate some water, electricity projects across the country every week.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Ardakanian noted that every week 30 villages are getting connected to the country’s national water supply network and this is a significant achievement for the government. 

Back in August 2019, Ardakanian had announced that by the end of the current Iranian calendar year over 1,440 villages will be supplied with drinkable water through pipelines.

EF/