Azerbaijan, Baku, July 4/Trend M. Moezzi
Although work on it began three months ago, the Caspian Sea water transfer project, which would send 500 million cubic meters of desalinated water from the Caspian to central Iran annually, has two problems that must be resolved, the Energy Ministry's Water and Wastewater Planning Bureau head Alireza Daemi said, Fars reported.
Daemi told the Fars news agency that one of problems with the Caspian water transfer project is that it doesn't have the necessary environmental permits.
A second issue added Mr. Daemi, is that it isn't clear where the project's funding will come from.
In late June Ali Larijani, the Iranian parliament's (Majlis) speaker, wrote Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, advising him to cancel a section of the legislation on transferring the Caspian Sea's water to central Iran. The letter said that if the president didn't take action the legislation would be repealed.
Before Mr. Larijani sent his letter, Iran's Supreme Audit Court and another supervisory body, the General Inspection Office of Iran (GIO) had asked the Energy Ministry for documents on the Caspian Sea project.
When asked why these problems weren't resolved before the project began, Mr. Daemi said water managers had concluded that projects like the Caspian water transfer should have a different process than others.
Usually, there is an employer, contractor and consultant for a project which slows things down, said Mr. Daemi who added the Caspian water transfer project is being carried out like other modern projects in the world and will move forward quickly.
Inaugurated in the Mazandaran Province's town of Sari, the pipeline is to deliver water southeast to the Semnan Province in its first phase.
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