TEHRAN – Iranian Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian said on Saturday that 133 major energy projects have been inaugurated across the country in recent months, IRNA reported, citing the portal of the Energy Ministry (Paven).

Speaking in a ceremony on the occasion of the Ten-Day dawn celebrations which marks the victory of the Islamic revolution in 1979, Ardakanian said more than 194.4 trillion rials (about $4.6 billion) has been invested in the mentioned projects.

According to the official, 227 projects, with 300 trillion rials (about $7.85 billion) of investment, are also planned to be inaugurated in the remaining two months of the current Iranian calendar year (ends on March 19).

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/