Tajikistan not to refuse from completion of Rogun HPP - Rakhmon

DUSHANBE, April 23 (Itar-Tass) - The Rogun hydropower plant is a strategically important energy facility of Tajikistan, therefore, the republic would not refuse from its completion, President of Tajikistan Emomali Rakhmon said in an address to the nation and the county’s parliament on Wednesday. “The Rogun HPP is an important strategic line in our energy policy, and in its completion we see a way towards energy independence,” he stressed. Rakhmon explained that “this summer international experts will complete the project’s feasibility study and its environmental and social impact assessment under the aegis of the World Bank.” “We hope for positive results,” the president said. “Over recent years, 13 billion somoni (2.7 billion U.S. dollars) have been invested in the development of the energy sector [of Tajikistan],” Rakhmon said. He added that this sum would double in the next seven years, and the allocated funds would be used in the construction of new hydropower plants, in modernisation of the operating plants and also in the construction of power transmission lines. The decision on the Tajikistani authorities on the completion in the Rogun HPP with the design capacity of 3600 MW in the foothills of the Pamir mountains and with the world’s highest 335-metre dam has caused strong opposition of a number of countries of the region, first of all Uzbekistan, which believe that the construction of such a hydropower plant in a seismic hazard zone may result in a technogenic and ecological catastrophe. Dushanbe for its part believes that the HPP construction will help it resolve the problem of many-year energy deficit as a result of which the country’s population for the past 15 years have been getting electric power for just four or six hours a day. Learn more on itar-tass.com