DUSHANBE, July 24, 2010, Asia-Plus — Construction of a Tajik part of the Sangtuda-Puli Khumri power transmission line (the Tajikistan-Afghanistan 220 kV interconnection project) is nearing completion as 98 percent of the power grid has been constructed on Tajik territory, Deputy Minister of Energy and Industries, Akram Sulaymonov, remarked at a news conference in Dushanbe last Friday.
According to him, the construction work is being delayed on Afghan territory for some reasons.
We will recall that the Tajik side was expected to complete its part of the Tajikistan-Afghanistan 220 kV interconnection project in May this year but because of the rail problems (freight cars loaded with building materials for the power grid were being held up in Uzbekistan) the completion of the construction of the power transmission line on Tajik territory was delayed.
A total cost of the Tajikistan-Afghanistan 220 kV interconnection project is 56.5 million U.S. dollars and it is financed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID), the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund, and the governments of Tajikistan and Afghanistan.
On the territory of Tajikistan, the line starts in the Sanguda-1 hydroelectric plant and ends on the Tajik-Afghan border. The 220 kV Tajikistan-Afghanistan power transition line is 274 kilometers long, and 118 kilometers of it lies on Tajik territory and 156 kilometers on Afghan territory.
