TEHRAN - Iranian Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian inaugurated 18 water and electricity projects worth 95.4 trillion rials (about $227 million) on Tuesday during his one-day visit to the northeastern province of Khorasan Razavi, IRNA reported.

Two 400 kilowatt (KW) electricity substations with 19 trillion rials (about $45.2 million) of investment, an earthfill dam project worth 21.5 trillion rials (about $50 million) as well as several water and wastewater projects were among the inaugurated projects.

The mentioned projects were inaugurated as a part of a major program called “A B Iran” [the acronyms A and B stand for water, electricity in Persian”, in which 10 trillion rials (over $238 million) of projects will be inaugurated in each of the country’s provinces, on average.   

Based on the “A B Iran” program, Energy Ministry plans to inaugurate some water, electricity projects across the country every week.

In late November, Ardakanian said 227 major water and electricity projects worth 331.74 trillion rials (about $7.89 billion) will be inaugurated in the country in the second half of the current Iranian calendar year (ends on March 19, 2020).

According to the minister, currently, several dams are under construction in Tehran, Ilam, Qom, Yazd, Kerman, West Azarbaijan and Semnan provinces and when operational they will add 745 million cubic meters to Iranian dams’ water capacity.

Over the said period, 1,124 villages would also be supplied with drinkable water and 29 Wastewater treatment plants, over 3,000 megawatts (MW) capacity of thermal power plants and 278 MW capacity of renewable power plants, as well as projects for increasing the efficiency of the country’s agricultural sector through modernizing the irrigation systems, are planned to be inaugurated.

EF/MA

Photo: Iranian Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian inaugurates Abiverd earthfill dam in Dargaz county in the northeastern province of Khorasan Razavi on Tuesday.