Punjab is landlocked and about a thousand kilometres from the nearest port at Mundra or Kandla, and about fifteen hundred from Mumbai.
Its exporters use inland container depots and dry ports, principally at Ludhiana and around it, from which containers move by rail to the western ports.
The freight cost from Punjab to a port is a standing disadvantage against exporters in Gujarat and Maharashtra, and it is cited in every assessment of why Punjab's manufacturing has not grown.
Before 1947 Punjab's trade went west, to Karachi, which is closer than any Indian port, and through the Khyber into Afghanistan and central Asia. Both routes closed.
The Attari crossing to Pakistan, when open, was the shortest route to central Asia by an enormous margin and it has been shut since 2019.
Punjab's economic geography was reorganised in 1947 and the reorganisation has never been compensated for.
A container from Ludhiana travels about thirteen hundred kilometres before it reaches the sea, and that cost is carried in the price of every hosiery consignment and every bicycle part that leaves the state.
The freight corridor and the inland depots have cut the transit time and have not changed the distance.
Karachi is about eight hundred kilometres from Amritsar by road. Trade across that border has been suspended since 2019 and was narrow before it.