Iran has finished laying track on the Chabahar-Zahedan railway, opening a potential new gateway for India toward Central Asia. Roads and Urban Development Minister Farzaneh Sadegh Malvajerd confirmed the milestone in Sistan and Baluchestan province. The line links Chabahar port on the Gulf of Oman with Zahedan, near the Afghan and Pakistani borders, and officials expect it to be fully operational within three to four months, once safety checks are completed.
What the line does
The railway plugs Chabahar into Iran’s national rail network. Once operational, Indian goods could move north to Afghanistan, Central Asia and Russia without passing through Pakistan. The project includes 33 stations, 39 tunnels and 201 bridges and crossings. Iranian steelmakers supplied about 90,000 tonnes of rail for the route, and Iranian officials project an annual capacity of 7.7 million tonnes of freight and 2.2 million passengers.
Why it matters for India
Pakistan does not allow India overland transit to Afghanistan and Central Asia, and Chabahar offers New Delhi a way around that restriction. The port sits about 140 km west of Pakistan’s China-financed Gwadar port.
Chabahar also anchors the southern end of the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), a 7,200 km network of sea, rail and road routes linking Mumbai with St Petersburg, which Russia, India and Iran agreed to develop in 2000. An Indian freight forwarders’ study puts the corridor’s cost at 30 per cent less than the Suez route and its length at 40 per cent shorter. From Zahedan, cargo can move north through Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan on the corridor’s eastern branch, which has been operating since 2014.
Obstacles along the way
India and Iran first agreed to develop Chabahar in 2003, but US sanctions repeatedly stalled progress. Iran dropped India from the rail project in July 2020, citing slow Indian funding, and pressed ahead alone, allocating about $400 million from its National Development Fund.
The corridor’s western branch still has a 162 km gap between Rasht and Astara, where cargo has to leave the rails and cross by road. Russia is financing the missing section with about €1.6 billion, and construction is expected to take roughly 48 months.
Washington revoked India’s 2018 Chabahar sanctions waiver effective September 29, 2025. New Delhi secured a six-month reprieve, which lapsed on April 26, 2026. India allocated no money to Chabahar in its February budget, the first time this has happened in almost a decade.
The Azerbaijan factor
Azerbaijan is the most crucial node on the INSTC’s western route, through which goods reach Astara on the Iranian border before crossing into Russia and Europe. Relations between India and Azerbaijan soured in 2025 when Baku backed Pakistan following India’s Operation Sindoor strikes. India then blocked Azerbaijan’s bid for full membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in September 2025, and President Ilham Aliyev publicly attributed the veto to Baku’s ties with Pakistan.
Both sides are now working toward a reset. Officials held their first Foreign Office consultations since 2022 in Baku earlier this year, and Azerbaijan helped India evacuate citizens from Iran during the war.
A corridor shadowed by war
Iran completed the line amid a seven-month war that began on February 28, when the United States and Israel attacked Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Iran effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz in response, and Washington imposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports. Qatar brokered a ceasefire and a June memorandum that curbed large-scale fighting, though both sides continue to trade strikes. On September 26, President Donald Trump rejected Tehran’s latest truce offer, saying, “I’ve rejected their deal.” Tehran’s proposal asks Washington to end the port blockade and lift oil sanctions.
Chabahar lies outside the Strait of Hormuz, which keeps it clear of that particular choke point, though not of the broader US blockade. “Obviously, the current conflict is also a complicating factor,” India’s foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in April.
A route several capitals are watching
For India, Chabahar offers a counter to China’s Belt and Road Initiative and its investment in Gwadar. Moscow and Tehran see the corridor as a trade route that can operate outside the reach of US sanctions. According to the same freight forwarders’ report, cargo from Mumbai could reach Moscow in about 20 days, down from 40 by existing routes. Landlocked Central Asian states and Afghanistan would also gain a more direct route to the Indian Ocean.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian discussed the corridor at the recent BRICS summit, and India is now seeking a deal to reclaim port development rights once US sanctions are lifted. For now, Iran has laid the track. Whether Indian cargo ever moves on it will depend on developments in Washington, Baku and the battlefield.
