Afghanistan is all trying to build a healthy friendship with India. Thus, the government of Afghanistan is doing some good events related to India and Afghanistan. On the eve of India Independence day, the Afghanistan government had made a big Indian and Afghanistan flag together combined to say that Afghanistan wants to build friendship with India related to many aspects.
In the same way, the government of Afghanistan has renamed the name of Salama dam to Afghan-India friendship dam following a robust investment by India in reconstruction of the dam. The decision was reportedly taken by President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani during a meeting of the cabinet of ministers. Salama dam is located in western Herat province of Afghanistan and it is expected that the dam will incur a cost of around $300 million by the time of its completion.
The reservoir filling in Salma dam project started late in the month of July. According to the Indian Consulate in western Herat province, the dam reservoir will be around 20 km long and around 3 km wide. The hydroelectric and irrigation dam project is located on the Hari River in Chishti Sharif District of Herat Province in western Afghanistan.
As per a report, the dam was originally constructed in 1976 on the Hari river basin, but was damaged early during the civil war in Afghanistan. In 2006, India committed to funding the completion of the Salma Dam. Once completed, the hydroelectric plant will produce 42 megawatts of power in addition to providing irrigation for 75,000 hectares of farmland – stabilizing the existing irrigation of 35,000 hectares and development of irrigation facilities to an additional 40,000 hectares of land.
Renaming of the Salma Dam as the Afghan-India Friendship Dam is a just acknowledgement of the contribution made by New Delhi to the overall development of Afghanistan and more particularly to the development of irrigation, transportation and large infrastructure projects in the country. The storage capacity of the reservoir will be 640 million cubic meters of water, the Indian consulate said.
Since 2002, the Government of India has committed USD 2 billion dollars to the socio-economic rebuilding of the Afghan state and society in accordance with the development priorities of the Government and the people of Afghanistan. The project includes construction of 107.5 m high and 550 m long rock fill dam and other typical components of any hydroelectric power project such as spillway, powerhouse, and switchyard and transmission line.
India is also involved in the construction of the parliament building in Kabul which is also nearing completion and would be a landmark contribution to parliamentary democracy by the World’s most populous one. Apart from the large projects a number of smaller development projects are also implemented across the provinces.