Azerbaijan, Baku, Jun.29/ Trend F.Karimov/
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahamdinejad inaugurated a dam today with a total storage capacity of 500 million cubic meters, IRNA reported.
The Talvar dam is situated in northwestern Zanjan province. It is projected to provide 85 mcm of potable water for Hamedan, Zanjan, and Kordestan provinces, as well as irrigation water for 32,000 hectares area of farmlands in the region.
In April, IRNA quoted Managing Director of Iran Water Resources Management Company Mohammad Haj-Rasouliha as saying that Iran will establish 15 new dams by the end of the current Iranian calendar year, which began on March 21.
The dams will have a total water storage capacity of 6 billion cubic meters, he added. The existing dams gave a total storage capacity of 52 billion cubic meters, he noted.
In August 2012, Haj-Rasouliha said that according to the fifth five-year development plan, which started in March 2011, one dam should be built each month.
Some 36 billion rials (around $3 billion) has been allocated for dam building, he noted.
Some 3 billion cubic meters of surface waters in Iran are being reserved behind dams, Energy Minister Majid Namjou said in June 2012.
He told the IRNA News Agency that 75-80 percent of surface waters are poured into the dams.
Iran ranks first in the region and third in world in terms of dam construction industry, First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi announced last year.
He added that currently contractors are building 135 new dams across the country and also doing several projects in other countries.
