KABULvenetianpokertournaments, June 28 (Xinhua) -- Construction on the 500-kilovolt Arghandi substation project in Paghman district of Kabulvenetianpokertournaments, the national capital of Afghanistan, resumed on Thursday, local officials said.
The Afghan caretaker government's Acting Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar inaugurated the project, local media outlet TOLOnews reported.
Originally launched during the previous administration to import electricity from neighboring Turkmenistan, the project was left incomplete following the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces from Afghanistan in August 2021.
"This project, with a purchase of 1,000 megawatts of electricity from Turkmenistan, will address electricity shortage in Kabul and 13 neighboring provinces," TOLOnews quoted Abdul Latif Mansoor, acting minister of energy and water, as saying.
Expected to be completed for 183 million U.S. dollars within two years, the project could supply power to 400,000 families in Kabul, Ghazni, Paktia, Khost, Nangarhar and several other provinces, Mansoor said.
Currently, Afghanistan produces only 20 percent of its power domestically, while the remaining 80 percent is imported from neighboring Iran, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, as reported by the private media outlet.
Mansoor also said the administration is striving to overcome the power shortage problem through domestic sources in the coming years.■