The country’s power distributor, Da Afghanistan Bereshna Sherkat, said on Sunday that the imported electricity from Uzbekistan has been disconnected due to technical issues.

DABS official Safiullah Ahmadzai said that Islamic Emirate officials are negotiating with Uzbekistan officials about the reconnection of power supply to the country.

He said to address the lack of electricity in Kabul, the company has activated the Tarakhil thermal power station.

“We activate thermal power stations for five and six hours at night which has a huge cost for us because our customers have electricity for one to two hours,” Ahmadzai said.

Two weeks ago, Uzbekistan extended the agreement for supplying power to Afghanistan.

According to the agreement, Uzbekistan should provide 450 megawatts of electricity to Afghanistan during winter which cost $100 million. 

Ahmadzai said that it is not clear when the electricity will reconnect to Afghanistan.

“We didn’t receive a positive response from Uzbekistan about when they will reconnect the electricity to Afghanistan,” he added.

“Breshna has to immediately connect the Turkmenistan electricity line from Mazar-e-Sharif and the Pul-e-Khumri line to Kabul. And it should not wait for any external help,” said Amanullah Ghalib, former head of DABS. 

Kabul residents said that they are facing a tough situation due to continued blackouts while struggling with the cold winter.

“You cannot live in Kabul without electricity. People are faced with many challenges,” said Aimal Safi, a Kabul resident.

According to Da Afghanistan Breshana Sherkat, the import transmission lines for Kabul electricity were made in 2008 and have the capacity of transmitting 300 megawatts of power while Kabul needs more than 700 megawatts of power.