UPSC Prelims 2017 · Question 34 of 99

UPSC Prelims 2017 question on Chabahar Port

What is the importance of developing Chabahar Port by India?

  1. India’s trade with African countries will enormously increase.
  2. India’s relations with oil-producing Arab countries will be strengthened.
  3. India will not depend on Pakistan for access to Afghanistan and Central Asia.
  4. Pakistan will facilitate and protect the installation of a gas pipeline between Iraq and India.
Show answer

Answer: C. India will not depend on Pakistan for access to Afghanistan and Central Asia.

Verdict

The answer is that India will not depend on Pakistan for access to Afghanistan and Central Asia.

Analysis

India and Iran signed agreements allowing India to develop and use the port of Chabahar on the Gulf of Oman, which gives Indian goods a sea route to Iran and then an overland route north to Afghanistan and Central Asia, bypassing Pakistani territory that India cannot transit. That is the strategic point of the project. Trade with African countries runs on entirely different routes, relations with Arab oil producers are not advanced by a port in Iran, and the fourth option imagines Pakistani cooperation on a pipeline that the project is designed to make unnecessary.

Source

Press Information Bureau release and press reporting on Chabahar.

How to crack it

For a connectivity project, ask what geographical obstacle it circumvents, because that is almost always its purpose. India's land route to Afghanistan and Central Asia is blocked by Pakistan, and a port on the Iranian coast is the only way around it. Pair Chabahar with Gwadar in your notes, since the two ports sit close together and are commonly contrasted, and that contrast is itself examinable.

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