TEHRAN – President Hassan Rouhani, on Thursday, inaugurated 26 water and electricity projects worth 27.61 trillion rials (about $657.38 million) in four provinces through video conference.

Inaugurated in the 34th week of the Energy Ministry’s A-B-Iran Program, the mentioned projects were put into operation in West Azarbaijan, Ardebil, Isfahan, and Mazandaran provinces, IRNA reported.

Of the mentioned projects, four were inaugurated in West Azarbaijan, three were in Ardebil, nine projects were inaugurated in Isfahan, and another 10 projects went operational in Mazandaran.

The projects included some irrigation and drainage projects, a dam, several electricity supply projects, some water supply projects, five small-scale power plants, as well as several projects for improving the quality of the electricity network and reducing losses.

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, 2020), 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 (started on March 20, 2020), every week several energy projects have gone operational across the country.

Earlier this month, Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian had said that “In the second phase of the program 250 projects are going to be inaugurated by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20) of which so far 154 have gone operational.”

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

Last week, some 28 energy projects worth over 5.53 trillion rials (about $131.6 million) were inaugurated in two provinces in the 33rd week of the mentioned program.

EF/MA