A giant hydroelectric dam project in the central Asian nation of Tajikistan will force thousands of people to abandon their homes, officials said Thursday, DPA reported.
Some 6,500 inhabitants of the Rogun district, about 110 kilometres east of the Tadjik capital Dushanbe, will be affected.
"Around 1,000 families are to move by the end of the year," Labour Minister Makhmadin Makhmadaminov said. "You can't live in an area flooded after the dam is built."
The mammoth Rogun dam project - begun in the 1960s but repeatedly stalled due to funding shortages, floods, and political crises - will dam the Vakhsh River as it flows north from the Pamir Mountains.
Officials in neighbouring Uzbekistan have expressed fears that the Rogun dam could, once it is completed, cut off Uzbekistan's cotton industry from critical irrigation.
The cash-strapped Tadjik government is attempting to finance the Rogun dam's estimated 2.95-billion-dollar construction cost in part by selling shares in the project via an initial public offering.
Private investors buying Rogun dam shares have so far contributed some 192 million dollars, according to Tadjik government statements.