Uplift projects okayed for Kandahar

Kandahar City: The minister for Rural Rehabilitation and Development Eshan Zia signed contracts of implementation of 36 development projects in the southern Kandahar and Uruzgan provinces.

The contracts were signed in Kandahar during visit by the minister, representatives of the local development councils who will supervise the work and private construction companies who will implement these projects.

Twenty of these projects will be implemented in Kandahar and 16 in the neighboring Uruzgan province, the minister Ehsan Zia told reporters in a ceremony held for signing the contracts.

The minister said the projects will be implemented in Kandahar's Arghandab, Arghasan, Dand, Rigistan and Spin Boldak districts. In Uruzgan province, the rural rehabilitation projects will be carried out in the provincial capital Tirin Kot, Chora and Dehrawod districts.

The projects were mainly road construction and provision of clean drinking water in the remote areas.

The minister said 50,000 residents of the two provinces will get clean water and benefit from the transportation facilities provided in the projects.

The 160-million fund for these projects is provided by the ministry from its development budget, said the minister.

The MRRD officials say contracts of 879 development projects totally have been signed for this year to be implemented in Kandahar, Uruzgan, Nimroz and Helmand provinces in the south. More than half of these projects have already been completed and the rest are underway or yet to start work on them, the ministry officials say.

Residents of these areas have asked for speeding up the reconstruction works in their areas.

Haji Azizullah, a resident of Arghandab district in Kandahar, told Pajhwok Afghan News rural rehabilitation projects could bring effective changes in lives of ordinary people in the war-torn areas.