This article originally appeared in The Telegraph on July 9, 2026.
Calcutta is the only Indian city that repeatedly appears in China’s maps for the Belt and Road Initiative. The BRI is a China-funded land, air, and maritime international transportation and allied investment network that seeks to connect China with countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. When it comes to India, BRI maritime maps connect Calcutta to Colombo and Nairobi. The proposed land and air-based Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar Economic Corridor would connect Calcutta with northern Myanmar and then southern China.
The proposal sounds quixotic because the Singapore port handled 44.5 million of twenty-foot equivalent shipping containers — the international standard — in 2025. Its unparalleled infrastructure, political stability, and location cement Singapore’s role as a transshipment hub to multiple major ports. On the other hand, the Calcutta Port System consisting of the port of Calcutta and the Haldia Dock System handled 804,579 TEUs in 2024-2025: that too was an increase of 6.87% from 2023-2024.
The issue, therefore, is not the quantity of goods but the Calcutta Port System’s role in international trading and international relations. Calcutta is key to trade in northern South Asia and Southeast Asia due to its location and its role as a transportation hub. Calcutta’s transportation dominance is especially prominent in the maritime domain. Consequently, enhancing the Calcutta Port System will allow India to achieve developmental objectives in its northeastern region and foster mutually beneficial trade with neighbouring countries, namely Nepal, Bhutan, and Myanmar.
The port system’s proximity to India’s Northeast makes it critical for international trade with the region. However, the narrowness of the land corridor from eastern India via northern Bengal hinders overland transportation and makes it vulnerable to potentially hostile neighbouring countries. Thus, India has sought to develop the Kaladan Multimodal Transit Transport Project, a road network in the Northeast that culminates in the Sittwe port in Myanmar’s Rakhine province. Doing so would provide India a maritime link between the Calcutta Port System and the Northeast, thereby removing the necessity of relying on Bangladesh for access to land and on the Chittagong port to gain access to India’s Northeast while also embedding northern Myanmar in developmental projects that would reduce that country’s dependence on China.
The Calcutta Port System also provides maritime access to the Himalayan countries of Nepal and Bhutan whose sovereignty and territorial integrity are threatened by China. These countries rely on this port system for goods ranging from foodgrains to electronics. The current Indian administration has sought to facilitate trade with these nations via Calcutta. In 2016, India and Bhutan agreed to remove all duties on imports of goods to Bhutan and exports of Bhutan’s products to third countries via Calcutta’s Port System. In November 2025, India and Nepal signed a transit treaty to include all types of cargo, which should provide ballast to Nepal’s use of this port system.
The port system also undergirds trade with one of Asia’s tiger cub economies — Vietnam. Calcutta has the shortest transit route between the two major Vietnamese ports of Ho Chi Minh City and Haiphong — 11 and 13 days, respectively. Bilateral trade exceeded $15 billion in 2024 and covers the full extent of goods, from agricultural products, rubber and textiles, to iron and steel, electronics, and industrial equipment. In July 2022, Vietnam inaugurated a shipping route that links Vietnam’s central region to Calcutta: the expanded Chu Lai International Port in the province of Quang Nam began coordinating operations with the Calcutta port in 2025.
However, the Calcutta Port System’s ability to provide these advantages is threatened by such challenges as infrastructure, geography and international competition. Each of these problems is more difficult to resolve than the last in terms of financial wherewithal and political will for the state and the Central governments. The easiest issue to resolve is the upgradation of the infrastructure of the Calcutta Port System so that it can handle larger numbers of containers at a faster pace. The Haldia port can handle 300,000 TEUs per year at present. A contract for modernisation and capacity expansion for Berth Number 5 at the Haldia port under a public-private-partnership arrangement had been signed between Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port and Ganges Bulk Terminal in December 2024. Another PPP project to modernise both outer terminals and the five berths at the Calcutta port was awarded to JSW Infra in June 2026. JSW’s goal is to increase their Calcutta port throughput to 1.4 million TEUs
per year.
The geographical challenge pertains to the silting in the Ganges. At present, neither the Calcutta port nor the Haldia port has a draft of 14 metres that is minimally required for Post-Panamax containerships: Calcutta has a draft of 8.5 metres while Haldia has a draft of 9.1 metres. The largest ships, which are used to transport raw materials like coal and metal ores, require a draft of 18 metres.
The dredging efforts at the Calcutta and Haldia ports received a boost in 2025 with the Centre assuring Rs 1,839 crore in funding until 2031. The Adani Corporation had received a contract in 2022 to build the Tajpur port, which would have achieved a draft of 16 metres. However, the project stumbled on account of the lack of land for warehousing and transport infrastructure like railways and roads. Now the new BJP government in Bengal has announced a PPP project to set up the Dadanpatrabar deep-water port with a maximum draft of 18 metres. The state government owns 1,700 acres of land at the site that could accommodate storage and transportation infrastructure. Rationalising control by creating a centralised administration that can coordinate transportation, including land transportation, into Calcutta and Haldia would be central to reviving the entire port system.
Finally, Chittagong port that provided competition to the Calcutta Port System also suffers from low drafts compounded by the sinuousness of the Karnaphuli river upon which it is located. Initially, the Bangladesh government under the former prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, had sought to attract Chinese investments for the deep-sea Sonadia port as part of the BRI. China has been the largest trading partner of and defence equipment supplier to Bangladesh. China is also building a railway connecting Kunming in Yunnan to Chittagong as part of BRI. However, Bangladesh cancelled the agreement after pressure from India, Japan, and the US.
China evidently recognises the Calcutta Port System as an economic force multiplier for India’s economic power in the region. Calcutta’s potential in this regard is proven by its criticality to India’s Himalayan neighbours and the northeastern states, not to mention the eastern industrial hub centered in Asansol-Durgapur. The Indian government has recently advanced several solutions, from modernisation to expansion of the port system. Yet, more needs to be done by the Indian government and private investors to strengthen the port system to ward off Chinese influence.
Vasabjit Banerjee is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, America