According to experts from the Center for the Study of Socio-Political Processes in the Post-Soviet Space of Moscow State University, the length of the new canal should be 285 km, width – 100 meters, depth – 8.5 meters. The canal originates from the Amu Darya in the Kaldar district, Balkh province. The water for the canal will be taken from the same river. The capacity of the channel will be 650 cubic meters per second.
The project is being implemented by the national development company, construction is carried out at the expense of public funds. The estimated cost of the project is about $684 million.
According to the plan of the developers, the canal will irrigate 3 million jeribs of land (1 jerib - 2,000 square meters) in the provinces of Balkh, Jawzjan and Faryab and provide employment for about 250,000 people. The Taliban believe that the project will help water dry regions, which will give impetus to the development of agriculture. Now more than 6,000 people have been involved in the construction of the canal.
At the end of November 2022, the length of the completed section was about forty kilometers. Completion of the project is scheduled for 2028.
Experts fear that when the “Kushtepa” canal is put into operation, the situation with the watershed in the region will deteriorate sharply. And this despite the fact that in recent years all the republics of Central Asia are increasingly feeling the lack of water.
“The downstream Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan may suffer the most. Countries could lose up to 15% of irrigation water from the region’s main river. But the main consumer of water in Central Asia is Uzbekistan, whose population has reached 34 million people and continues to grow. Moreover, 90% of water in the republic is used in agriculture. It should be noted that since June last year, the filling of the Amudarya basin has fallen to 65–85% and has remained below the norm so far. Last year’s water savings from Tashkent, Dushanbe and Ashgabat did not give the desired effect,” the report says.
The authorities of Kabul are not going to limit themselves only to the construction of the “Kushtepa” canal. Afghanistan plans to build the Dasht-i-Djun hydroelectric complex, which can accumulate most of the summer flow of the Pyanj River. Thus, the Taliban are going to take the lion’s share of the water from the northern transboundary rivers.
The implementation of these two projects, according to experts, may entail not only economic and social problems in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, but also an environmental disaster throughout Central Asia.
