DUSHANBE, May 19, 2016, Asia-Plus – Reuters reports that thousands of demonstrators from Afghanistan''s Hazara minority marched in protest through Kabul on Monday, accusing President Ashraf Ghani''s government of cutting them out of a multi-million dollar power transmission line project.

Protesters reportedly demanded that the planned route for the 500 kV transmission line linking Turkmenistan with Kabul be changed to pass through two provinces with large Hazara populations, an option the government says would cost millions of dollars and delay the badly needed project by years.

The government says the current plan ensures that the two provinces of Bamyan and Wardak will get ample electricity even if the main transmission line does not pass through them directly.

The line, intended to provide power to 10 provinces, is part of a wider Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan-Tajikistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (TUTAP) electricity project backed by the Asian Development Bank linking the energy-rich Central Asia republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The demonstration passed largely peacefully, with only isolated reports of trouble and President Ghani thanked the protesters for not resorting to violence.  A commission to review the plan will report within 10 days.

Only about 30 percent of Afghanistan is connected to electricity and modernizing the creaking power system, which is subject to frequent blackouts, has been a top priority.

Under current plans, due to be implemented by 2018, the line would pass from a converter station in the northern town of Pul-e-Khumri through the mountainous Salang pass to Kabul.

Demonstrators want an earlier version of the plan that would see a longer route from Pul-e-Khumri through Bamyan and Wardak, to the west of Kabul.

The government says that switching the route would delay the project by as much as three years, leaving millions without secure electricity.