TEHRAN – Minister of Roads and Urban Development Farzaneh Sadegh has said that the Chabahar-Zahedan Railway project in the southeastern Province of Sistan and Baluchestan will become operational in the near future.
Sadegh made the remarks in a ceremony to commorate the memory of martyred Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei on Saturday.
“The Chabahar-Zahedan railway project has reached its final stages after many years. This railway, which is considered one of the projects under completion in the last decade, will soon be put into operation,” the minister said.
She added that the late martyred Leader stressed the project completion in the earliest possible time, appreciating President Masoud Pezeshkian’s administration for focusing on the project completion.
The track-laying operations of the railroad from the Chabahar end were started in early November 2020 in a ceremony attended by former Iranian Transport and Urban Development Minister Muhammad Eslami, while from the Zahedan end the operations had been started in early July that year.
The Chabahar-Zahedan railway is a strategic project, designed to enhance economic activity in the southeast and boost cargo transit through Iranian territory, from the Indian Ocean to Afghanistan and other landlocked Central Asian nations.
Chabahar — Iran’s only oceanic port — has seen a surge in infrastructure and logistics investment over recent years. More than 240 trillion rials (around $4.5 billion) in public and private funding has been channeled into expanding storage, unloading, and cargo-handling capacities.
 According to the Ports and Maritime Organization of Iran, the construction of new mechanized silos and covered warehouses will increase the port’s operational capacity by at least 50% by next year. Meanwhile, the 634-kilometer Chabahar–Zahedan railway has become one of Iran’s fastest-moving infrastructure projects, with a record pace of 50 kilometers of track-laying per month. Officials describe it as “a turning point in the country’s transport development.”