Background:
Afghanistan is rapidly building an enormous canal to draw water from the Amudarya River. This has the potential to affect the water availability situation to Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

The Qosh Tepa Canal, named after the Qosh Tepa district in the Jawzjan province, will be 285km in length and 100 meters in width. It will help irrigate 550000 hectares of land (1.35 million acre, or 5500 square kilometers).

The Taliban said that at present some 5500 people are working simultaneously at about 120 locations to speed up the work. More than 3300 units of machinery are in use. More than 200 local companies are working as sub-contractors under the supervision of the Afghanistan National Development Company.

The Taliban are doing the first phase of the project, which is 100km in length, from their own revenues. The cost of the first phase is about USD 91 million.

For the subsequent two phases, they will generate funds from the selling of mines, particularly the Dar-e-Souph Mine.

The canal will have the capacity to carry 650 cusec (cubic meters per second) of water, feeding the lands in the Balkh, Jawzjan, and Faryab provinces. Of these, Jawzjan and Faryab provinces border with Turkmenistan.

More than half the work on the first phase has been completed and this 100km phase will be ready by June 2023, some two months ahead of the schedule.

The Economist reports that the project is not new. Plans for a canal in north Afghanistan had been discussed for decades; feasibility studies were carried out under its former American-backed government. Even so, the Taliban’s progress looks impressive. Satellite imagery supplied by Planet Labs, pbc, an American firm, reveals that over 100km of canal has been excavated in the past 10 months

Director of Amu Darya in the northern zone:
Mawlavii Abdul Hakeem Hikmat (20230327)