DUSHANBE, January 24, Asia-Plus — Daily damage caused by cutting off power supplies to industrial enterprises amounts to nearly 17.5 million somonis (equivalent to more $5 million), known Tajik economist, Professor Hojimuhammad Umarov, said in an interview with Asia-plus.
According to him, these estimations are based on the volume of annual production of industrial goods (last year, Tajikistan produced a total of 5 billion somonis worth of industrial goods).
The expert attributes the present severe energy crisis to wrong national energy policy. “In order to avoid such crises it is necessary to develop alternate energy resources along with hydropower,” Professor Umarov said.
In the meantime, Asia-Plus today tried to find out which Dushanbe enterprises receive electrical power. It turned out that Dushanbe enterprises such as meat processing and packing plant, confectionery Shirin, Tajiktekstilmash, garment factory Guliston and some others have not had electricity for two days.
However, administrations of thee enterprises refrained from commenting on details of damage caused by power supply cutoff. The ministries of economy and energy as well as the center for strategic studies also refused to comment on this subject.
We will recall that speaking to journalists at news conference on January 22, Sharifkhon Samiyev, chairman of power holding Barqi Tojik (Tajik electric systems), said that due to serious power crisis that hit Tajikistan, electricity supplies to all industrial enterprises, with exception of a number of facilities of statewide importance such as Tajik aluminum smelter, Dushanbe cement plant, bread-baking and dairy plants, have been cut off, and their staffers will go on forced vacation until February 1.
