Iran Completes the Chabahar-Zahedan Railway, Opening a New Land Route for India to Central Asia
Iran has finished laying tracks on the Chabahar-Zahedan railway line, a roughly 630 to 730 kilometre line connecting Chabahar Port on Iran's south coast to Zahedan near the Afghanistan border, with reported figures varying slightly across sources.
The line includes 33 stations, 39 tunnels and 201 bridges, and is targeted to be commissioned and operational by January 2027.
Once running, the railway will connect Chabahar Port directly to Iran's national rail network, giving India an alternative land route to Afghanistan and the landlocked countries of Central Asia that does not pass through Pakistan.
This development strengthens the transport backbone that supports the wider International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), which already links India, Iran, Russia and Central Asia by sea, road and rail.
Chabahar Port: India's Strategic Investment in Iran
Chabahar Port is a seaport on Iran's Makran coast, in Sistan and Baluchistan province, right next to the Arabian Sea. It is the only Iranian port that has direct, easy access to the open ocean, unlike Iran's other major ports which sit inside the narrower Persian Gulf. For India, Chabahar is important because it offers a sea and land route to Afghanistan and Central Asia that completely avoids Pakistani territory, something India cannot do through any other port.
The completion of the Chabahar-Zahedan railway line directly upgrades what Chabahar Port can offer India: instead of relying only on trucks after the port, cargo can now move by rail toward Afghanistan and, through Iran's wider rail network, toward Central Asia, making India's long-standing Chabahar investment more useful once the line is commissioned.
International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC)
The International North-South Transport Corridor, or INSTC, is a large transport network of sea, rail and road routes that connects India to Russia and Northern Europe by passing through Iran and the Caspian Sea region. Instead of one single route, INSTC is really several possible paths, using ships, trains and trucks together, that let cargo move between India and Russia/Europe without going all the way around through the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea.
The Chabahar-Zahedan railway is a missing link that INSTC has needed for years: a direct rail connection from the Indian-operated port straight into Iran's national rail network. Once commissioned, it should make the Iranian leg of INSTC faster and more efficient, strengthening the case for shifting more India-Central Asia and India-Russia cargo away from the traditional sea-only routes.
- Chabahar-Zahedan railway: construction completed around 25 September 2026; targeted commissioning around January 2027
- Line length: approximately 630-730 km (varies by source); 33 stations, 39 tunnels, 201 bridges
- Trilateral Chabahar Port agreement: signed May 2016 (India, Iran, Afghanistan)
- India's Chabahar terminal: Shahid Beheshti Terminal, run by India Ports Global Limited (operations since 2018)
- INSTC founding agreement: 16 May 2002 (India, Iran, Russia)
- INSTC approximate length: ~7,200 km, Mumbai to Moscow