Work on the project of transferring 500 kilovolts of electricity from Turkmenistan to Jawzjan and from there to Baghlan and Kabul began on Thursday after the project was inaugurated with the presence of 1st Deputy Prime Minister Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.

Speaking at the inauguration ceremony, Baradar said that with implementation of the project, Afghanistan will be provided with hundreds of kilovolts of power and that efforts are underway to increase domestic production of electricity in the country.

“With the implementation of this project, 500 kilovolts of power will be imported and hundreds of organizations will be provided with electricity. It will also provide electricity in the southern provinces through Kabul,” he said.

“It will help us to import 1000 megawatts of electricity at less prices compared to Tajikistan and Turkmenistan,” said Abdul Qahar Abid, an official of Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat (DABS).

Meanwhile, Abdul Latif Mansour, acting Minister of Energy and Water (MoE), said that the implementation of the project will help the industrial factories to operate.
“Our industry will escalate. The factories will be reactivated, which we need to activate,” he said.

Citizens meanwhile welcomed the start of work on the project and urged the interim government to take more steps on the construction of dams.

“We should use our resources and water. This electricity comes from abroad, but I hope we will be able to export electricity abroad,” said Mohammad Sakhi, a resident of Baghlan.

“We should work on the dams inside Afghanistan, so we are not in need of going abroad,” said Akhtar Mohammad, a resident of Baghlan.

Based on the statistics of the officials, the construction of the project has been contracted with two national companies and will be completed within two years in 12 provinces.