KHUJAND, February 11, 2010, Asia-Plus — Electricity supplies to the settlement of Zarnisor (formerly Altyn Topkan) were resumed yesterday, Muminjon Toshmatov, director of Sughd electricity supplier, said in an interview with Asia-Plus.
“Sughd power engineering specialists managed to resume electricity supplies to the settlement yesterday evening at abut 6:00 pm,” said Toshmatov, “However, electricity supplies were resumed to residential customers only, while the Tajik-Chinese Mining Company deployed in the settlement has not yet received electricity.”
According to him, the settlement residents still have electricity only in the night while in the daytime electricity supplies are being cut off because repair work is still going on. Bad weather conditions have been impeding work, Toshmatov added.
“To resume electricity supplies to the settlement Sughd specialists have extended a 2-kilometer overhead circuit from domestic power supply sources,” Toshmatov said.
It is not know yet when electricity supplies to the Tajik-Chinese Mining Company will be resumed.
We will recall that Sodiq Rustamov, head of the energy and industries department within the Sughd regional administration, told Asia-Plus that Uzbekistan cut off electricity supplies to the settlement of Zarnisor for unknown reasons on February 7.According to him, the concentrating mill of the Tajik-Chinese Mining Company with rated capacity of processing up to one million tons of ore per year has already been prepared for introduction into operation. The plant will produce lead and zinc concentrates. “The plant was supposed to be introduced into operation in November 2009 but the launch was postponed because of mistakes made in designing a tailing dump,” said Rustamov, “They began to construct a new larger tailing dump and this work will take one more month.” According to him, some 500 people, with 70 percent of them being Tajik nationals, now work for the Tajik-Chinese Mining Company.
