New international Rail project

India plans 'world's most dangerous railroad' from Afghanistan to Iran

India is planning to build what could be the world's most dangerous railroad from Afghanistan's mineral-rich heartland to an Iranian port on the Arabian Sea in attempt to open a new trade route and reduce Kabul's dependence on Pakistan.

 By Dean Nelson, New Delhi

 02 Nov 2011               

Details of the new plan emerged on the eve of the Istanbul conference on security and economic development in Afghanistan in the run-up to the planned withdrawal of American troops in 2014.
Washington has urged India, Pakistan and Afghanistan to co-operate in creating a new 'Silk Road' of trade ties to break the current suspicion which mars political relations and restricts potential trade.
India expects American hostility to its plan, however, because it will bolster Iran's sea capability by developing a major port at Chabahar on the southern tip of the country facing out over the Gulf of Oman.
For India, the prize is a potentially highly lucrative contract to mine Afghanistan's iron reserves, which are estimated to be worth up to $3 trillion – several times the size of India's growing economy – and the strategic advantage of a new trade and logistics route to Afghanistan which bypasses Pakistan.
Despite recent improvements in diplomatic relations between India and Pakistan, trade is still highly restricted and while Afghan imports trickle slowly through Pakistan into India at the Wagah border, between Amritsar and Lahore, Indian exports to Afghanistan through Pakistan are almost non-existent.  
The new route would allow Afghan minerals and products to be shipped to Surat, Mumbai or private ports in Gujarat on India's Western seaboard.
Sources close to the project said an Indian delegation from its foreign, railways, shipping and commerce ministries, will visit Iran next month to continue negotiations on the plan which are understood to have been discussed between the two countries when Indian prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh and Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad met in New York in September.
The plan is a revival of an idea which has been discussed infrequently between the two countries since 2003, but it has regained momentum following the discovery of vast reserves of iron ore and other coveted minerals in Afghanistan in the last few years.
While earlier plans extended the current Iranian rail network to the Afghan border in the north and linked to Chabahar via a spur from Bam and Faraj in the south, the new plan extends the rail link to Hajigak in the heart of Afghanistan's Bamiyan province, 80 miles north-west of Kabul.
India accounts for more than half the 22 companies bidding for iron ore mining contracts in the region.
A leaked memo from India's Ministry of External Affairs to its Railways ministry said the economic potential of the mineral reserves called for a new approach. "To coordinate the strategy for investment in Hajigak in the backdrop of the security, infrastructure, financial and regional challenges involved, there is a need to plan and craft our strategy to address these challenges," the memo stated.
The plan appears to have Afghanistan's backing. An Afghan official last night told The Telegraph:"Whenever it suits them, Pakistan can close the border. We don't want to be dependent on them."
One figure close to the project said although India's plans look to exploit Afghanistan's mineral reserves, the threat to any rail development from the Taliban and other militant groups would be so great that it would have to be regarded as a strategic rather than commercial project. "They could blow it up at any time," he said.