Baradar assuages concerns over Qush Tepa canal project

MAZAR-I-SHARIF (Pajhwok): Deputy Prime Minister Maulvi Abdul Salam Hanafi has said the enormous Qush Tepa irrigation canal will be completed before the stipulated time.

Hanafi and deputy prime minister for economic affairs Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar leading a delegation visited the under-construction Qush Tepa canal project in northern Balkh province.

Baradar said that the government was fully determined to complete the 285-kilometer long canal.

He also asked the neighboring countries not to be worried about the project because the 152-meter wide canal was being built only to divert Afghanistan’s share of water from the Amu River.

Maulvi Abdul Salam Hanafi said works of the canal would be finished ahead of the given time and currently the work was ongoing at a fast pace.

He said the canal would be 285-km long, 152 meters wide and 8.5 meters deep.

Once completed, Hanafi said, the project would help Afghanistan become self-sufficient in terms of grains and would also export the grains to other countries.

National Development Corporation head Abdul Rahman Attash said the first phase of the canal would be completed by the end of next year.

He added 16 billion and 600 million afghanis had been allocated for the first phase and this year they spent eight billion afghanis and next year another eight billion and 600 million afghanis would be spent on the canal.

Attash also said the distribution of land around the canal would be started after the completion of the canal.

The caretaker government expects the project to turn 550, 000 hectors of desert into much-needed farmland.

According to the National Development Corporation, currently 300 companies, 4000 bits of machinery and more than 6500 people are working on the project in 97 groups.

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