TEHRAN- Iranian Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian announced that projects worth 90 trillion rials (about $2.14 billion) have been already inaugurated in the water and electricity sectors of the country in the second phase of the A-B-Iran program, IRNA reported.

Making the remarks during the inaugural ceremony of an electricity monitoring center at the place of MAPNA Group (a group of Iranian companies involved in the development and execution of industrial projects) on Tuesday, the minister said that through implementing the A-B-Iran program, 19 large water and electricity projects were put into operation during eight weeks.

He put the total number of the projects inaugurated during the first phase of the mentioned program at 227 and the amount of investment made on these projects at 330 trillion rials (about $7.85 billion).

The minister said that the program will be developed in the second phase, in a way that 250 projects are planned to be implemented in this phase.

According to Ardakanian, three big dams and 22,000 drainage networks have been already inaugurated in the second phase.

Four wastewater treatment plants and four power plants have been also inaugurated and water has been supplied to 15 villages during the second phase.

Based on the A-B-Iran scheme [the acronyms A and B stand for water, electricity in Persian], the Energy Ministry plans to inaugurate some water and electricity projects across the country every week.

Following this scheme, the ministry is going to inaugurate 250 major projects worth 500 trillion rials (about $11.9 billion) during the current Iranian calendar year (ends on March 20, 2021).

The mentioned program was also conducted by the ministry in the previous Iranian calendar year (ended on March 19), during which 227 major projects went operational across the country.

According to the energy minister, during the 20 weeks of the mentioned program in the previous year, the minister made 31 trips to various provinces for inaugurating energy projects.

MA/MA