TEHRAN Jan 13(Shana)--Next year budget has allocated 73.000 billion IR rials to development plans of Ministry of Energy, up by 33 percent year-on-year.Deputy Minister of Energy for planning and financing Alireza Daemi made the remarks in a press conference, adding continuation ofdroughtand undesirable level of rainfalls in the country has caused the next years budget to raise the fund needed for preserving underground resources of water by 340 percent against last year.
Underground waters constitute more than 50 percent of the water resources of the countryand that is why protecting them has been taken into account in drafting next years budget, Energy Ministry official said.
He went on to say that existence of more than 200 thousand unauthorized wells in the country has lowered the level of underground waters, adding falling the level of underground waters, salty water and big cracks on the surface of the ground are the result of unauthorized withdrawal of water from underground resources.
He noted that these moves have endangered water resources in a number of provinces including Fars, Kerman, Yazd and South Khorasan.
With having 30 million subscribers in electricity sector and 22 million subscribers in water sector, Ministry of Energy has no way but to give priority to sustainable services and social justice, he said noting this approach has been put into force at a time when article 44 of the constitution obliges the ministry to move towards reinforcing non-state sector and transfer management of them to the private sector.
By SHANA
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