Comments
India and Afghanistan are considering a proposal of laying a 600-km railway line between Bamiyan province in the central part of the country and its western province Herat, bordering Iran.
Responding to a query, Wahidullah Shahrani, Afghanistan’s Minister of Mines, said here on Wednesday that this was a newly proposed rail corridor project, which both countries might jointly implement.
“The proposed corridor would link a number of mineral resources deposits in Afghanistan,” the Minister said. The landlocked and war-ravaged country does not have a physical communication infrastructure.
Though a SAIL-led consortium of steel makers was involved in an iron ore and steel project linked to Bamiyan deposits of Hajigak, he insisted that this was a separate project. Another consortium, also led by SAIL, has bid for an unexplored copper deposit in Herat’s Shaida area.
Officials in New Delhi and Kabul have been trying to find a transport route that can viably evacuate minerals or metals out of Afghanistan.
A proposal of a rail link from Hajigak will run westwards to Iran, along the Zaranj-Delaram highway that India had built in the mid-2000s, to the Iranian port of Chabahar.
jayanta.mallick@thehindu.co.in
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.