MPSC 2026 Prelims Paper-I · Question 86 of 100

Correct — option (3), '(a), (c) and (d)'. One statement in this set is factually wrong, and identifying it settles the question outright, because it appears in three of the four options. Statement (b) is the false one. The port China has built and operates in Pakistan, and the port against which Chabahar is habitually described as a counterweight, is Gwadar in Balochistan — a deep-sea port developed with Chinese assistance and a flagship of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Karachi is Pakistan's oldest and largest commercial port, a historic natural harbour that long predates any Chinese involvement in Pakistani port infrastructure. So the statement fails twice: China did not build Karachi, and Karachi is not the port Chabahar is set against. Since option (1), option (2) and option (4) all include statement (b), all three fall together, and option (3) is the only survivor. The other three statements hold. Statement (a) states the strategic rationale of the project: Chabahar sits on Iran's Sistan-Baluchistan coast on the Gulf of Oman, giving India a sea route to Iran and then an overland route onward to Afghanistan and Central Asia without any cargo passing through Pakistani territory — the transit Pakistan has not permitted. That is why the port has been an Indian interest since the India-Iran-Afghanistan trilateral transit agreement of 2016, and why Indian wheat consignments for Afghanistan have moved through it. Statement (c) is correct: India Ports Global Limited, the state-owned special purpose vehicle set up for the project, is the entity through which India develops and operates the Shahid Beheshti terminal at Chabahar. In May 2024 India Ports Global and Iran's Port and Maritime Organisation signed a long-term contract for the terminal's operation. Statement (d) is also correct: the Union Budget for 2026-27 carried no allocation for the Chabahar port, after allocations in earlier years. The Ministry of External Affairs explained the nil figure not as a withdrawal but as the completion of India's financial commitment — the 120 million US dollars committed for procurement of port equipment had been fully transferred through India Ports Global Limited, the final tranche in August 2025.

• (1)(a), (b), (c) and (d) — The all-inclusive option, and it fails on statement (b) alone. This is the standard fate of a blanket 'all of these' choice in a current-affairs set: three genuine statements are put beside one that has been quietly corrupted, and a candidate who is confident about the port's purpose, its operator and its budget line will tick everything without re-reading the one clause that was altered. The alteration here is a single proper noun — Karachi in place of Gwadar.
• (2)(b), (c) and (d) — This keeps the false statement (b) and, worse, discards statement (a), which is the least contestable proposition in the whole question — bypassing Pakistan to reach Afghanistan and Central Asia is the entire strategic point of Indian involvement at Chabahar. An option that rejects the project's rationale while accepting a mistaken claim about Karachi is wrong at both ends.
• (4)(a), (b) and (c) — This is the trap for a candidate who is strong on the geography and the institutional detail but has not followed the Budget. It correctly takes (a) and (c), wrongly takes (b), and drops (d), which is true: the 2026-27 Budget made no allocation for Chabahar, the Ministry of External Affairs describing India's financial commitment of 120 million US dollars for port equipment as already discharged in full.

Chabahar is Iran's only port on the open ocean — it lies on the Gulf of Oman, outside the Persian Gulf and therefore outside the Strait of Hormuz. That single geographical fact is what makes it valuable to India. Cargo sailing from Kandla or Mumbai can be landed at Chabahar and moved overland into Afghanistan and, through the International North-South Transport Corridor, towards Central Asia and Russia, without transiting Pakistan, which has not granted India overland transit rights. India's role is concentrated on the Shahid Beheshti terminal, developed and operated through India Ports Global Limited, a special purpose vehicle owned by Indian public sector port entities. The project is usually read alongside Gwadar in Pakistani Balochistan, developed with Chinese assistance under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and lying a short distance along the same stretch of coast, which is why commentators describe Chabahar as India's strategic counterweight to Gwadar.

The project's constraint has always been sanctions rather than engineering. Iran-related sanctions have made shipping lines, insurers and banks cautious about Chabahar traffic even when the port itself has been exempted, and the exemption India secured for the port's development has been subject to review. That is the background against which the nil allocation in the 2026-27 Budget was read in the press as a signal, and against which the Ministry of External Affairs replied that India's committed 120 million US dollars for port equipment had already been transferred in full through India Ports Global Limited, the last tranche in August 2025 — a completed payment schedule rather than an exit. A note on the printed paper: the English statement (a) sets 'by passing Pakistan' as two words where 'bypassing' is plainly meant. The sense is not in doubt and the Marathi column reads unambiguously, but it is the kind of slip that can cost a hurried candidate a second look.

• Chabahar lies on Iran's Sistan-Baluchistan coast on the Gulf of Oman — Iran's only oceanic port, outside the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz
• India develops and operates the Shahid Beheshti terminal through India Ports Global Limited, the state-owned special purpose vehicle; in May 2024 it signed a long-term operating contract with Iran's Port and Maritime Organisation
• The port gives India a route to Afghanistan and Central Asia that does not cross Pakistani territory, and is a node in the International North-South Transport Corridor
• Gwadar, not Karachi, is the Pakistani port built with Chinese assistance under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor; Karachi is Pakistan's oldest and largest commercial port and long predates Chinese involvement
• The Union Budget for 2026-27 made no allocation for Chabahar; the Ministry of External Affairs said India's commitment of 120 million US dollars for port equipment had been fully transferred through India Ports Global Limited, the final tranche in August 2025

• Confusing Gwadar with Karachi in any statement about Chinese port building in Pakistan. Gwadar is the CPEC port; Karachi is the old commercial harbour, and swapping the two is the single most common way this topic is falsified
• Reading a nil budget line as the end of a project. Here the absence of an allocation went with an official statement that the committed amount had already been paid in full, so the inference 'no money, therefore withdrawal' does not follow
• Placing Chabahar inside the Persian Gulf. It is on the Gulf of Oman, and being outside the Strait of Hormuz is precisely what gives it its strategic value

Chabahar recurs in three forms. The first is pure geography — which sea, which Iranian province, which country's coast is nearest. The second is institutional, testing the operating entity, the terminal's name or the year of the trilateral agreement. The third, as here, is a mixed statement set combining strategy, institutions and a fresh budget or diplomatic development, in which the falsified statement is usually a swapped proper noun rather than a swapped idea. When you meet such a set, read every proper noun twice before you read the reasoning.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Chabahar port, in which India has developed the Shahid Beheshti terminal, is situated on which body of water ?

  • (a)The Persian Gulf
  • (b)The Gulf of Oman
  • (c)The Red Sea
  • (d)The Caspian Sea

  Answer(b) The Gulf of Oman — Chabahar is in Iran's Sistan-Baluchistan province on the open ocean, outside the Persian Gulf and therefore outside the Strait of Hormuz. That location is the source of its strategic value to India, and it is also why the port can be reached without entering the Gulf at all.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Gwadar port, frequently discussed alongside Chabahar, is located in which country and is associated with which connectivity initiative ?

  • (a)Iran; the International North-South Transport Corridor
  • (b)Pakistan; the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor
  • (c)Oman; the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor
  • (d)Sri Lanka; the Maritime Silk Road

  Answer(b) Pakistan; the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor — Gwadar is a deep-sea port in Pakistani Balochistan developed with Chinese assistance and treated as a flagship of CPEC. It is Gwadar, not Karachi, that Chabahar is normally described as counterbalancing.