The International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC): India’s Grand Plan for Northern Connectivity

In December 2017, The Economic Times announced that the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), which it hailed as a “game changer for India’s Eurasia policy”, was to be operationalised from mid-January 2018, with India to send its first consignment of goods via the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas to Russia. Alongside Bandar Abbas on the Strait of Hormuz, the port of Chabahar on the Gulf of Oman – as Iran’s sole Indian Ocean port – has also emerged as a key feeder port to the INSTC. India has already pledged around $500 million toward developing this strategically-located port that provides India, currently the world’s largest fastest growing large economy, with a transit route to Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia and beyond that bypasses Pakistan, which has been reluctant to grant its regional rival overland access through its territory. In October-November 2017, India successfully despatched an inaugural consignment of around 15,000 tons of wheat from the Indian port of Kandla in Gujarat to Afghanistan via Chabahar, in line with its commitment to provide 1.1 million tons of wheat to Afghanistan on a grant basis. In February 2018, during the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s first state visit to India, India and Iran issued a joint statement that noted the inauguration of Chabahar Port Phase-1 in early-December 2017, Indian industrial investment in Chabahar Free Trade-Industrial Zone, India’s commitment to the development of the Chabahar-Zahedan rail line and the leasing agreement that gives operational rights of Chabahar’s Shahid-Besheshti port to India Ports Global Limited (IGPL) for 18 months. By the first week of April 2018, India had sent seven shipments of wheat to Afghanistan through Chabahar.