CASA-1000 to start power supply in next two years

ISLAMABAD: The much-awaited regional power project CASA-1000 is about to supply electricity from central Asian states to Pakistan and Afghanistan within next two years, a senior foreign diplomat said on Wednesday.

Bahodur Buriev, the first secretary of the Embassy of Tajikistan said the CASA-1000 would be complete in two years and “we would start providing electricity to Pakistan and Afghanistan”.

“They [Afghanistan] are responsible for providing security,” Buriev told media.

The $1.2 billion of CASA project was launched in May 2016 under which Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan will supply 1,000 megawatts of electricity to Pakistan and 300MW to Afghanistan during the summer.

Tajik envoy, talking about a conference held in Dushanbe on 20-21 June, said Tajikistan proposed to expand public-private partnership to open new opportunities to attract additional investment in water sector and infrastructure as water scarcity poses a serious threat to different countries.

The conference’s title was International Decade for Action Water for Sustainable Development 2018-2028.

At the moot, Tajikistan President Emomali Rahmon stressed efforts on increasing the efficiency of using financial resources and finding new sources of financing for water-related industries. Buriev said the expansion of public-private partnership opens new opportunities for attracting additional investments in the water sector and infrastructure.

The conference is aimed at forming a broad and open platform to strengthen and expand the regular multilateral water dialogue with a focus on concrete actions.

The diplomat said Pakistan and Tajikistan agreed at the moot to cooperate in future to strengthen water infrastructure.

Citing a World Bank’s estimate, he said around $114 billion a year needs to be spent to achieve the two objectives of the 6th goal of sustainable development, namely universal access to safe drinking water and sanitation.

More than 800 million and 2.5 billion of the world’s population, respectively, do not have access to safe drinking water and basic water sanitation.

Buriev said demand for water resources in the world is growing at an accelerated pace, which, in turn, causes tense relations between different economic sectors.

“We are still considerably behind the implementation of the set goals and objectives in the field of ensuring access to safe drinking water and sanitation.”