Friday, June 3, 2016
Kabul (BNA) The Salma Dam project, which is expected to be inaugurated next week had been elevated a scheme could lead to self-sufficiency in the poverty-suffered nation. The project, after getting operational would help produce the needed power of up to 42 megawatt supplied to the Herat provincial capital city and some nearby districts and control the waters to talk over, with some neighboring about how much would be their/our portions, deputy power and water minister, Amanullah Ghaleb said evaluating the economic importance of the project at the national level. The dam, the work project of which had reached to $300 million and financed by India has the capacity of some 642 m3 water and production of over 42 megawatt power could irrigate over 80,000 hectares of lands, Ghaleb said. The dam, with its new name of Afghan-India Friendship Dam, is expected to be inaugurated, next five days after the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Afghanistan, said the deputy minister.
The Salma Dam project could lay positive impact on the country’s economic expansion in long-term, a University professor and economist, Saifuddin Saihoon believed. “The Salma Dam, with decade long construction project, would help improve the country’s economy, reduce the need to the imported power and develop agriculture in the landlocked country,” Saihoon added. The dam, located in Chusht-e-Sharif district of the western province of Herat, is expected to be inaugurated next week as the construction work had been completed, the presidential office said the other day. The Kabul based Indian embassy announced the work had been completed on the decade-long project and would be inaugurated by the Indian Prime Minister. The water had been said to have difficult to be controlled, but by the Indian government’s financial cooperation, Afghanistan could control the waters and reserved in the newly constructed dame with the capacity of up to 20km length and width of 3.7km, according to the Afghan official. The primary construction project of the dam had been started in 2002, with the official infrastructural work kicking off in 2006. The Salma Dam’s scheme had been laid down at the era of King Amanullah Khan at the Harirood River area, 170 km northeastern of Herat province, where the Indian authorities are expected to open it next week.
