TEHRAN – Iranian Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian said the National Development Fund (NDF) is going to provide the ministry with €50 million of funding for supplying drinking water to rural areas across the country.

Ardakanian noted that using this fund, clean water will be provided for more than 700,000 people in rural areas during the current Iranian calendar year (started on March 20), IRIB reported on Sunday.

According to Ardakanian, under the A-B-Iran program and using the NDF funds, 859 villages with a population of 54,000 people were connected to the sustainable water network last year.

The Energy Ministry has been implementing a scheme called A-B-Iran [the acronyms A and B stand for water, electricity in Persian] since the previous Iranian calendar year (ended on March 19), under which it inaugurates some water, electricity projects across the country every week.

Ardakanian also mentioned the recent developments in electricity exports to Iraq and said "We have received half of the dues, which is about 800 to 900 million dollars."

“We have started a new project with Iraq, according to which, with the help of our country's engineers and contractors, we will reduce the losses of the Iraqi electricity network, which is currently 50 percent, to 20 percent in three years, which means a 30 percent increase in the country’s electricity production.”

The losses of the electricity distribution network in our country have fallen below 10 percent, and the experiences in this area are to be used in the neighboring country as well, the minister said.

Ardakanian further noted that the implementation of the A-B-Iran program is going to continue in the current Iranian calendar year (started on March 20) and this year the ministry is going to inaugurate 250 major water and electricity projects worth 500 trillion rials (about $11.9 billion).

The official said during this program 227 major projects with a total investment of 335.6 trillion rials (about $7.99 billion) went operational across the country in the previous year.

EF/MA