TEHRAN – Iranian Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian on Tuesday inaugurated seven major water industry projects valued at 1.57 trillion rials (about $37.3 million) through video conference in five provinces, IRNA reported.

Put into operation in the fifth week of the ministry’s A-B-Iran program in the current Iranian calendar year (started on March 21), the said projects were inaugurated in Zanjan, Isfahan, South Khorasan, Bushehr and Kerman provinces.

Water supply to several rural areas in the mentioned provinces as well as some wastewater treatment plants and a water storage facility were among the inaugurated projects.

Under the framework of the A-B-Iran program, the Energy Ministry has inaugurated many projects to supply drinking water to the country’s rural areas.

The first phase of the A-B-Iran program (the acronyms A and B stand for water and electricity in Persian) was initiated in the Iranian calendar year 1398 (ended on March 19, 2020), during which 220 major projects with a total investment of 335.6 trillion rials (about $7.99 billion) were put into operation across the country.

In the second phase of the program that was carried out in the previous Iranian calendar year (ended on March 20) 250 water and energy projects worth 500 trillion rials (about $11.9 billion) were inaugurated in several provinces.

The third phase of the program was officially started on April 6 and like the previous phases, this year, too, the Energy Ministry is planning to inaugurate numerous water and electricity projects in various provinces every week.

In the first week of the third phase, Ardakanian inaugurated five major electricity projects worth 29 trillion rials (about $690.4 million) across the country to mark the beginning of the third phase of the ministry’s A-B-Iran program.

The inaugurated projects comprised of 8,142 sub-projects including numerous electricity supply projects, as well as power network modification and optimization projects.

EF/MA