Tuesday, October 4, 2005
Indian engineers construct strategic Afghan-Iran road
Gurinder Randhawa (IANS)
Zaranj (Afghanistan), October 4, 2005
A strategic new road from Afghanistan to Iran being built by Indian military engineers will improve access to sea ports, reduce Kabul's dependence on Islamabad and boost trade with India and the Gulf.
The 280-km road from Delaram on the Kandahar-Herat highway to Zaranj on the Afghanistan-Iran border will bring the landlocked country 1,000 km closer to the sea and more than double its capacity to transport reconstruction material.
Currently, Afghanistan's only access to the sea is through the lofty Khyber Pass to the Pakistani city of Peshawar and onwards to the port of Karachi. Construction of the Delaram-Zaranj road by India's Border Roads Organisation, an organisation responsible for building and maintaining roads along India's frontiers, began this year in the arid desert terrain of Afghanistan's Nimroz province.
It is an arduous task, says project director, Brig. PK Sehgal, "A stretch of about 40 km has been readied for black-topping despite great difficulties posed by the desert terrain. We are continuously dogged by severe dust storms that restrict working time to just four to five hours a day," Sehgal said.
Sehgal said the heat too was "killing", with temperatures touching 55 degrees Celsius and water for construction and the workforce having to be transported over long distances. Afghanistan's complete dependence on Pakistan for both exports and essential supplies had spawned a string of unpleasant experiences. Last year Pakistani authorities held up hundreds of containers with supplies for Afghanistan at Karachi on the pretext of customs and security checks, triggering massive shortages and an artificial price rise in the country.
Worse, goods in transit from Karachi to Afghanistan, including supplies for the US armed forces, are often pilfered with the alleged connivance of port authorities and openly sold in markets in Peshawar. Perhaps the most sensational crime was the recent theft of some 21 tonnes of German manufactured Afghani coins en route to Kabul from Karachi.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai took up the matter with his Pakistan counterpart Pervez Musharraf in a bid to prevent such incidents in future. Often, Pakistan has blocked the supply of essential commodities like wheat, medicines and medical equipment, compelling these to be airlifted or shipped via a circuitous route from Mumbai to the Iranian ports of Chabahar and Bandar Abbas and onwards by road to Afghanistan.
Sehgal said construction material for the Delaram-Zaranj road too was transported via the Iranian ports. Observers are, however, hopeful that with the construction of the new road, these travails may soon be history. India has provided $80 million for the construction of the road from its assistance of $550 million for Afghanistan's reconstruction.
Iran too has constructed a vital bridge on a river marking the frontier between itself and Afghanistan, and is busy upgrading the road from Zaranj to Chabahar. Chabahar port is slated to be a key destination in the region, especially for the Gulf states, kick-starting trade in Afghanistan as well.
The Delaram-Zaranj road forms part of Afghanistan's new thrust on upgrading its road network, beginning with the primary "Garland Highway" connecting Kabul to Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan from two sides - via the Salang Tunnel through the Hindukush mountains and the other via Kandahar and Herat.
During Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Kabul in August, President Hamid Karzai had expressed his desire to make Afghanistan a land bridge between Central Asia, South Asia and West Asia. This road may be the first step towards achieving that ambition.