TEHRAN - Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, on Thursday, inaugurated 10 electricity and water projects worth 19 trillion rials (about $452.3 million) in two provinces, IRNA reported.

The projects were inaugurated in the southern Fars province and western Kermanshah province via video conference during the ninth week of the Energy Ministry’s A-B-Iran program, based on which every week major energy projects are going to be inaugurated in various provinces across the country.

Nine of the mentioned projects were in Shiraz city in Fars province and the other one went operational in Kermanshah.

The projects included some water supply projects, comprised of transmission lines, pumping stations, and water treatment plants, plus six solar farms in Fars province, as well as a dam in Kermanshah province.

As reported, the mentioned projects are going to create direct jobs for over 1500 people, while offering indirect job opportunities for over 2000 people.

Earlier this year, Iran’s Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian said in the second phase of “A-B-Iran” the ministry is going to inaugurate 250 major water and electricity projects worth 500 trillion rials (about $11.9 billion) during the current Iranian calendar year (ends on March 20, 2021).

According to Ardakanian, in the water sector, the mentioned projects include nine major dams, implementation of modern irrigation systems in 54,000 hectares of land, 20 water, and wastewater treatment plants and supplying drinkable water through a pipeline to more than 1400 rural areas across the country.

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

Since the beginning of the second phase of the scheme in the current Iranian calendar year, every week several wenergy projects have gone operational across the country.

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

EF/MA