Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust

"Indian port leaders are facing pushback from private terminal operators at Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) on a government plan to incentivize ocean carriers wary of operating in the relatively low-volume shipping corridor to and from Afghanistan via Chabahar Port in Iran, frustrating bilateral trade development efforts.

As a result, all ship calls on the India-Iran route have thus far been serviced by the JNPT-run terminal or DP World’s older, underutilized Nhava Sheva International Container Terminal (NSICT), which operates under a controversial 2005 tariff regime with a royalty commitment model." (JOC, "Private JNPT terminals resist incentives for Chabahar calls," 8/15/2019).

--

"With the opening of the Indian Ports Global Limited's office in Chabahar on Monday, Iran has officially leased the operational control of Shahid Beheshti Port to India. The Indian company is a joint venture managed by Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust and Kandla Port Trust for the development of ports overseas." (Financial Tribune, "Iran Chabahar Port Lease Deal With India Takes Effect," 12/25/2018).

--

"The government is buying out the shares of India Ports Global, which are now held in a 60-40 ratio by the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) and Deendayal Port Trust (DPT) in Kandla. This is because while the US government has granted India a waiver from sanctions on Iran with regard to its operations at Chabahar, the waiver does not extend to commercial entities such as JNPT or DPT, which run the risk of being blacklisted by Washington if they operate in that country." (Rediff, "Chabahar Port: How India bypassed US sanctions on Iran," 12/18/2018).

--

“Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT, at Navi Mumbai) would take 60 per cent equity in the Indian company to be formed for developing the Chabahar port in southeastern Iran.” (Business Standard, "JNPT to take 60% equity in Iran port project," 12/15/2014)

--

"India is sending a team to Iran to speed up work on a port that will provide access to resource-rich Central Asia and Afghanistan, officials said, moving quickly to take advantage of a thaw in Iran's relations with the West. The port of Chabahar in southeast Iran is central to India's efforts to circumvent Pakistan and open up a route to landlocked Afghanistan where it has developed close security ties and economic interests. The port, which India is partly financing, will also be another gateway to Iran itself for Indian commerce…The Indian ministry official said while India's involvement in the port development was not strictly under the international sanctions that had been imposed on Iran, any improvement in Iran's ties with the West would build confidence in the project. 'The Geneva agreement certainly opens up the space to pursue this at greater pace.' India has committed $100 million to upgrading facilities at the port after spending $100 million on building a 220-km (140-mile) road in a dangerous stretch of western Afghanistan to link up with Chabahar…A team from the state-run Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust which manages India's largest container port near Mumbai and the Kandla Port Trust will travel to Chabahar in the next few weeks and stay a month for a technical and commercial assessment. 'We have an opportunity here, the port has a strategic location,' said an official at the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust. 'But we also need to see the viability. There are not many ships going there at the moment. We have to make projections about traffic, revenue.' The port has the capacity to handle 2.5 million tonnes a year, which Iran would like to increase to 12.5 million tonnes. Iran has made the area adjacent to Chabahar town a free trade zone in the hope of spurring growth in its poor southeast. The Indian operators plan to set up a special mechanism to finance part of the port's infrastructure and they want the Iranians to give it long-term rights to operate it." (Reuters, "India accelerates Iranian port project after US-Iran thaw," 11/29/13)