YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. Caretaker First Deputy Prime Minister Ararat Mirzoyan has slammed the violations at small HPPs as ‘disgraceful’.

“Let’s assume they’ve a permit to use a given amount of water, but they actually use 3-4 times more. There are cases when the water isn’t anyhow being returned from the HPP to the river or canal, but it gets lost. What’s happening on the Akhuryan and Yeghegis rivers requires a serious revision and involvement of law enforcement agencies and studies,” he said at a Cabinet meeting.

In turn, State Oversight Service director Davit Sanasaryan said they’ve discovered violations after carrying out inspections at the Artashat water company. He said they’ve collected money from farmers but failed to enter it to the budget.

Caretaker Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan tasked to carry out studies and present facts to law enforcement agencies.

In turn, Prosecutor General Arthur Davtyan said they’ve discovered violations in nearly 150 small hydro power plants. The violations mostly concern the absence of water metering devices. An investigation is underway.

But Davtyan also said that they don’t have a damage calculation method for this type of situations. “We don’t have a calculation method in the event of the absence of a water meter to determine the volume of used water for a given amount of electrical energy,” he said.

He said that now there is an opportunity to clarify the sector with legal regulations.

He added that the investigation will reveal those responsible for the unlicensed use of the water.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan