Residents of Nimroz province on Tuesday called on the government to expedite work on the Kamal Khan dam. 

President Ashraf Ghani visited Nimroz in July and vowed to complete the construction of the hydropower dam in four months. 

The dam has been built in three phases. Phases 1 and 2 of the construction ended in 1966 and 2011. Work on the third phase of the dam was inaugurated by President Ghani in April 2017. 

The Kamal Khan dam is built on the Helmand River in Chahar Burjak district, Nimroz province. It will irrigate 174,000 hectares of land in three districts and will also supply water to the provincial center as officials put it. 

The dam is expected to provide nine megawatts of power and will store 52 million cubic meters of water, according to the National Water Affairs Regulation Authority. 

Nimroz residents said the construction of the dam has taken a long time. 

“We are still away from the inauguration of this dam,” said Nimatullah Sediqqi, a Nimroz resident. 

“Whenever the president ravels to a province he makes promises… We have not seen him to deliver on his promises,” said Assadullah, a Nimroz resident. 

“Few months back, President Ghani visited Nimroz and told the people that Kamal Khan Dam will be operational in a few months, but work on the dam has not been completed so far,” said Bismillah Ghiyasi, a Nimroz resident. 

Wais Basir, the deputy head of the National Water Affairs Regulation Authority, quoted by BCC Persian in a report on Nov. 8, said the intake gates were opened to assess technical issues of the dam. 

“The water intake was aimed at checking the technical issues of the dam,” the deputy governor of Herat Mohammad Nabi Barahwi told TOLOnews. 

At least one million people will be benefited from the dam, according to the National Water Affairs Regulation Authority.