TEHRAN – Iranian Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian said on Saturday evening that his ministry has implemented 128 projects with a total investment of 430 trillion rials (about $10.2 billion) under the framework of a program called “A-B-Iran” since the beginning of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20).

Following “A-B-Iran”, the Energy Ministry plans to inaugurate 250 major water and electricity projects worth 500 trillion rials (about $11.9 billion) during the current year (ends on March 20, 2021), the Energy Ministry’s portal Paven reported.

“We hope that until the end of the year, the inauguration of new projects will go on week by week and according to schedule, and we will do our best to fulfill this promise this year just like the previous year,” Ardakanian said in an interview with the national TV.

Since the beginning of the first phase of the program in the previous Iranian calendar year every week several energy projects went operational across the country.

According to the minister, so far, seven dams, eight irrigation and drainage network projects, four large water treatment plants, seven large wastewater treatment plants, 448 water supply projects to rural areas and seven supply projects to large cities as well as nine thermal power plants, 13 renewable power plants, five small scale power plants and 33 substations and transmission line projects have been implemented under the framework of the mentioned program.

The first phase of the A-B-Iran scheme [the acronyms A and B stand for water, electricity in Persian], was started in the previous year, during which 227 major projects with a total investment of 335.6 trillion rials (about $7.99 billion) went operational across the country.

According to the minister, during the 20 weeks of the mentioned program in the previous year, the minister made 31 trips to various provinces for inaugurating energy projects.

EF/MA