TEHRAN - President Hassan Rouhani on Thursday inaugurated the first phase of major water desalination and transfer project which is aimed at supplying Persian Gulf waters to central Iran through a pipeline, IRNA reported.

The project was inaugurated through video conference as part of a government program based on which, every week a major project will be inaugurated across the country.

Some 163 trillion rials (about $3.88 billion) has been invested in the mentioned project which is being implemented by the Energy Ministry in collaboration with the Industry, Mining, and Trade Ministry.

This project is aimed at transmitting Persian Gulf water to Hormozgan and Kerman provinces after being desalinated in a modern desalination plant.

As reported, with the implementation of this project, the country’s desalination capacity is going to increase by 50 percent.

In the first phase of this project, 305 kilometers (km) of pipelines, seven water pumping stations, and 10 electricity substations as well as 150 km of power transmission lines were designed and implemented in addition to constructing several balance tanks and storages.

This project has so far created job opportunities for 1,200 people.

In the first phase, the plan will desalinate 200,000 liters of water a day which will be transmitted to Kerman and Bandar Abbas cities for drinking and industrial purposes.

According to Iran’s Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian the Government has earmarked the budget for desalination of 8.2 billion liters of water a year and the operational work for 760 million liters of the mentioned figure has already been started.

This project aims to promote production, industry, and agriculture, as well as provide potable water to residents in arid areas.

EF/MA