India will today sign a 10-year-long contract with Iran to manage the strategic Chabahar Port in the Sistan and Baluchestan province on the Gulf of Oman coast. Union Minister for Ports, Shipping Minister and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal himself has flown to Iran on a special Indian Air Force flight to sign the deal. The long-term contract to manage the port will be renewed automatically and is intended to replace the original contract. The previous contract originally signed in 2016, was renewed annually and only dealt with operations at the Shahid Beheshti terminal at the port and not the Kalantari terminal.
The initial deal to develop the port was first signed in 2016 by PM Modi, Iran’s then President Hassan Rouhani and the then Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and gave India the right to develop 2 berths at the port. The aim of the original signing of the deal was to reduce Afghanistan’s dependency on Pakistan for trade with the wider world. The port is now handling more cargo than was expected in the last fiscal year and is handling considerably more than the modest amount of cargo it handled in 2022 despite international sanctions on Iran.
The port is seen as India’s gateway to Afghanistan and resource-rich but land-locked Central Asia, bypassing Pakistan both via land and via sea, especially China-built Gwadar port which is across the border from Chabahar. There have been talks to link the strategic port at the mouth of the Persian Sea to the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) that connects Russia to Iran via the Caucuses.
The port is expected to slash 60% of shipment costs coming in from Central Asia to India and reduce shipment times from Central Asia to India by 50%. The Chabahar Port and Sittwe Port, also developed by India, are seen as India’s bid to neutralise China’s influence in the region.
Dhruv Yadav
