TEHRAN- Iranian Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian said 154 major water and electricity projects have been put into operation throughout the country since the beginning of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20).

He said that 500.7 trillion rials (about $11.921 billion) has been invested for the mentioned projects, which have been inaugurated in the framework of the Energy Ministry’s A-B-Iran programs.

A-B-Iran program (the acronyms A and B stand for water and electricity in Persian) was initiated in the previous Iranian calendar year (ended on March 19), during which the minister made 31 trips to various provinces for inaugurating over 220 major projects with a total investment of 335.6 trillion rials (about $7.99 billion).

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

The most recent projects, worth over 5.69 trillion rials (about $135.4 million), were inaugurated in three provinces in the 31st week of the Energy Ministry’s A-B-Iran program on Thursday.

Back in August, Ardakanian said that in the second phase of the A-B-Iran scheme 250 projects were going to be inaugurated by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2021).

The official had said that a total of 500 trillion rials (about $11.9 billion) of investment would be made in the mentioned 250 projects.

MA/MA