6% Of Afghans Have Electricity; Power In Kabul Averages 3 hrs/day, Slightly Better Than Taliban Era

[hatrack]

EDIT

Nationwide, only 6 percent of Afghans have electricity, the Asian Development Bank says.
The electricity shortage underscores the slow progress in rebuilding the war-torn country. It also feeds other problems. Old factories sit idle, and new ones are not built. Produce withers without refrigeration. Dark, cold homes foster resentment against the government.

In Kabul, power dwindles after the region's hydroelectric dams dry up by midsummer. This past fall, residents averaged only three hours of municipal electricity a day, typically from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., according to USAID, the American government aid agency. Some neighborhoods didn't get any.

«That's a scary sounding figure because it's pretty tiny,» said Robin Phillips, the USAID director in Afghanistan. «So we're talking about the relatively poorer people in Kabul who have no access to electricity at this time of year.

Electricity was meager under the Taliban too, when Kabul residents had perhaps two hours of it a day in fall and winter. The supply has since increased, but not as fast as Kabul's population _ from fewer than 1 million people in the late 1990s to more than 4 million today. Meanwhile, souring U.S. relations with Uzbekistan have delayed plans to import electricity from that country. Power is not expected to arrive in a significant way until late 2008 or mid-2009.

EDIT

http://www.pr-inside.com/kabul-gets-only-3-hours-of-r383577.htm

[Dead_Parrot]

1. Ungrateful bastards

It's not like anyone's buggering around with thier thermostat by remote control.

Honestly, some people... :eyes: