{"id":2904,"date":"2026-04-23T08:22:44","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T02:52:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lotusarise.com\/qna\/?p=2904"},"modified":"2026-04-23T08:22:46","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T02:52:46","slug":"india-is-one-of-the-founding-members-of-the-international-north-south-transport-corridor-instc-a-multimodal-transportation-corridor-which-will-connect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lotusarise.com\/qna\/upsc\/prelims\/india-is-one-of-the-founding-members-of-the-international-north-south-transport-corridor-instc-a-multimodal-transportation-corridor-which-will-connect","title":{"rendered":"India is one of the founding members of the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), a multimodal transportation corridor, which will connect\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list mcq\">\n<li>India to Central Asia to Europe via Iran\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>India to Central Asia via China\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>India to South-East Asia through Bangladesh and Myanmar\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>India to Europe through Azerbaijan\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Answer: (a) India to Central Asia to Europe via Iran<\/strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"international-north--south-transport-corridor\">International North \u2013 South Transport Corridor<\/h5>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>India, Iran and Russia had in September 2000 signed the INSTC agreement\u00a0<\/strong>to build a corridor to provide the shortest multi-model transportation route linking the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea via Iran and St Petersburg. \u2018<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It is\u00a0a 7,200-km-long multi-mode network of ship, rail, and road route\u00a0for moving freight.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Regions involved:\u00a0India, Iran, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Russia, Central Asia and Europe.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>From St Petersburg, North Europe is within easy reach via the Russian Federation<\/strong>. The estimated capacity of the corridor is 20-30 million tonnes of goods per year.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The route primarily involves\u00a0moving freight from India, Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia via ship, rail and road.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The objective of the corridor is to increase trade connectivity between major cities such as Mumbai, Moscow, Tehran, Baku, Bandar Abbas, Astrakhan, Bandar Anzali and etc.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Currently, there are\u00a0<strong>13 Members of INSTC\u00a0<\/strong>(India, Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Ukraine, Belarus, Oman and Syria).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Bulgaria<\/strong>\u00a0has joined as an\u00a0<strong>Observer State<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Significance of the corridor:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Conceived well before China\u2019s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI),\u00a0<strong>INSTC will not only help cut down on costs and time taken for transfer of goods from India to Russia and Europe via Iran but also provide an alternative connectivity<\/strong>\u00a0initiative to countries in the Eurasian region.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>This will also synchronize with\u00a0\u00a0the\u00a0<strong>Ashgabat agreement<\/strong>,\u00a0a Multimodal transport agreement signed by India, Oman, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, for creating an international transport and transit corridor facilitating transportation of goods between Central Asia and the Persian Gulf.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lotusarise.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/International-North-South-Transport-Corridor-INSTC-1024x494.jpg\" alt=\"International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC)\" class=\"wp-image-53893\" title=\"\"><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Answer: (a) India to Central Asia to Europe via Iran&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; International North \u2013 South Transport Corridor Significance of the corridor:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1],"tags":[47],"years":[63],"class_list":["post-2904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prelims","category-upsc","tag-international-relations","years-63"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":3,"label":"Prelims"},{"value":1,"label":"UPSC"}],"post_tag":[{"value":47,"label":"International Relations"}],"years":[{"value":63,"label":"2025"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"LotusArise","author_link":"https:\/\/lotusarise.com\/qna\/author\/team-lotusarise"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":3,"name":"Prelims","slug":"prelims","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":1,"count":1251,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":3,"category_count":1251,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Prelims","category_nicename":"prelims","category_parent":1},{"term_id":1,"name":"UPSC","slug":"upsc","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":1269,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":1,"category_count":1269,"category_description":"","cat_name":"UPSC","category_nicename":"upsc","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":47,"name":"International Relations","slug":"international-relations","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":47,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":79,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lotusarise.com\/qna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lotusarise.com\/qna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lotusarise.com\/qna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lotusarise.com\/qna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lotusarise.com\/qna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lotusarise.com\/qna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2904\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lotusarise.com\/qna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lotusarise.com\/qna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lotusarise.com\/qna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2904"},{"taxonomy":"years","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lotusarise.com\/qna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/years?post=2904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}