Rupakjyoti Borah
Russia and India have been collaborating in a wide range of fields. One important area of cooperation between the two nations is in the field of connectivity. A big connectivity project between the two nations is the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) which runs from St. Petersburg to Mumbai via Iran. It is worth mentioning here that both India and Russia have good relations with Iran and India has already invested in a big fashion in the Chabahar port in Iran.
In the aftermath of Western sanctions on Russia after the start of the Ukraine-Russia war, India has become one of the most important purchasers of Russian oil, thereby helping shoring up the Russian economy too.
What Is The INSTC?
The INTSC is a 7,200-km (4500 mile) long multi-modal network of ship, rail, and road routes for freight between India, Iran, Azerbaijan, Russia, Central Asia and Europe. The objective of the INSTC is to increase trade connectivity between major cities like Mumbai, Moscow, Tehran, Baku, Bandar Abbas, Astrakhan, Bandar Anzali, etc. To test the effectiveness of the INSTC, dry runs of two routes were conducted back in the year 2014. While the first route tried out was between Mumbai to Baku via Bandar Abbas, the second was Mumbai to Astrakhan via Bandar Abbas, Tehran and Bandar Anzali.
What is worth noting here is that the results showed transportation costs were reduced by “$2,500 per 15 tons of cargo” by the use of the INTSC. The INSTC will also be complementary to the Ashgabat agreement, a multimodal transport agreement signed by India (2018), Oman (2011), Iran (2011), Turkmenistan (2011), Uzbekistan, (2011) Kazakhstan (2015) for creating an international transport and transit corridor. In the past, agreements had been reached for the TAPI(Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India) pipeline, though there has been no noticeable progress in the same because of a whole lot of factors.
What Are The Major Challenges For INSTC?
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