TEHRAN – Iranian Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian inaugurated and started three water and wastewater projects in Tehran Province on Monday, in the 11th week of the ministry’s A-B-Iran scheme, based on which every week several energy projects are going to be inaugurated across Iran.

As reported by the Energy Ministry’s news portal Paven, the projects include a water supply pipeline from Mamlu Dam to Pishva City, the start of construction of phases 7 and 8 of a wastewater treatment plant in the south of Tehran City, and a 20,000 cubic meter concrete storage tank with a total investment of 6.86 trillion rials (about $163 million) provided from government funds.

The water supply pipeline project which was completed with 300 billion rials (about $7 million) of investment is going to create direct jobs for 100 people while providing another 250 people employments indirectly.

The executive operations of the two projects of phases 7 and 8 of the wastewater treatment plant in the south of Tehran and the concrete storage tank of Mahmoudabad are also scheduled to be put into operation in the Iranian calendar years of 1403 (starts on March 20, 2024) and 1400 (starts on March 21, 2021), respectively.

These projects will also create 460 direct job opportunities as well as 2900 indirect ones.

A-B-Iran scheme [the acronyms A and B stand for water, 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).

Earlier this year, Ardakanian said in the second phase of the program the ministry is going to inaugurate 250 major energy projects worth 500 trillion rials (about $11.9 billion) during the current Iranian calendar year (ends on March 20, 2021).

According to the official, 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.

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.

EF/MA