India-Iran joint stamp issue-Chabahar and Kandla port

India-Iran joint stamp issue-Chabahar and Kandla port

India Post has issued a set of 2 stamps and a miniature sheet jointly with Iran on 17th February 2018 Chabahar port and Kandla port.

The port of Chabahar is located in southeastern Iran in the Gulf of Oman. It is the only Iranian port with direct access to the ocean. It is the only Iranian port with direct access to the ocean. No other international port has seen the level of involvement and enthusiasm from Chabahar as India. The port will make way for India to bypass Pakistan in transporting goods to Afghanistan using a sea-land route. At present, Pakistan does not allow India to transport through its territory to Afghanistan. It has, however, recently allowed some Afghan shipments to come to India. This will also give momentum to the International North-South Transport Corridor of which both are initial signatories along with Russia. Iran is the key gateway in this project. It entails the ship, rail, and road routes for moving freight between India, Russia, Iran, Europe and Central Asia. The route primarily involves moving freight from India, Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia. The objective of the corridor is to increase trade connectivity between major cities such as Mumbai, Moscow, Tehran,Baku, Astrakhan etc.

The port was partially built by India in the 1990s. An initial pact to build the Chabahar port was first inked during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government in 2003, but the deal slipped through during subsequent years. Negotiations only intensified after nuclear deal between P5 + 1 (the UN Security Council’s five permanent members — China, France, Russia, UK and US — plus Germany) and Iran last year. But reaching the deal was far from smooth and differences cropped up over ownership as Tehran’s Port Authority introduced role of private player in the process. After several rounds of negotiations between India’s consortium of JNPT, Kandla Port Authority and Iranian authorities, the contract was deemed ready for signing.

Kandla port, also known as the Deendayal Port Trust (Gujarat) is a seaport in Kutch District of Gujarat state in western India, near the city of Gandhidham. Located on the Gulf of Kutch, it is one of major ports on west coast. Kandla was constructed in the 1950s as the chief seaport serving western India, after the partition of India from Pakistan left the port of Karachi in Pakistan. The Port of Deendayal is located on the Gulf of Kutch on the northwestern coast of India some 256 nautical miles southeast of the Port of Karachi in Pakistan and over 430 nautical miles north-northwest of the Port of Mumbai (Bombay). It is the largest port of India by volume of cargo handled. Kandla history Deendayal Port Trust, India’s busiest major port in recent years, is gearing to add substantial cargo handling capacity with private sector participation. The west coast port handled 72,225 million tonnes of cargo in 2008-09, over 11% more than 64,920 million tonnes handled in 2007-08. Even as much of this growth has come from handling of crude oil imports, mainly for Essar Oil’s Vadinar refinery in Gujarat, the port is also taking measures to boost non-POL cargo.

Last fiscal, POL traffic accounted for 63 per cent of the total cargo handled at Deendayal Port, as against 59% in 2007-08. Although Deendayal Port Trust officials declined to elaborate given the ongoing election code of conduct, it is reliably learnt that the port will soon initiate the process of selecting developers for four clean cargo berths that together aim to handle 8 million tonnes of cargo. The four berths will be supported by a 14 m draft capable of handling 75,000 dwt vessels. The port has already received encouraging response from prospective bidders, for the project that is estimated to cost nearly 5,000 million INR.India-Iran joint stamp issue-Chabahar and Kandla port