Important National Highways in India – UPSC

National Highways

According to the Ministry of Roads, Transport and Highways (MoRTH), there are 599 National Highways in India. Over a period of time, the numbering of National Highways in India has been renewed. The Ministry has released details of National Highways in the country on its official website.

The National highways are a network of trunk roads owned by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. It is constructed and managed by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), the National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL), and the public works departments (PWD) of state governments.

India has 151,019 km (93,839 mi) of National Highways as of March 2021. National Highways constituted 2.7% of India’s total road network, but carried about 40% of road traffic, as of 2013.

• The longest National Highway is NH44, which runs between Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir and Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu, covering a distance of 3,806 km (2,365 mi).
• The shortest National Highway is NH766EE, which spans 4.27 km (2.65 mi), from Hettikeri to Belekeri port in Karnataka.
• The Leh–Manali Highway connecting Leh in Ladakh to Manali in Himachal Pradesh is the world’s second highest-altitude motorable highway.
• The first National Highway in India was the old NH-1. It linked the National capital Delhi to Attari in Punjab near Indo-Pak Border. Now as per the new numbering system, NH 1 runs between Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.

On 28 April 2010, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways officially published a new numbering system for the national highway network.

How Indian Highways are numbered?

1. All North-South highways will carry EVEN number 
2. All East-West highways will have ODD numbers
3. All major Highways will be a single-digit or double-digit in a number
4. North-South highways will increase their numbers from East to West. For example, a particular North-South highway in Central India or Western India will have a higher number than the one in East India.
5. Three digits numbered highways are secondary routes or branches of the main highway. For example, 144, 244, 344, etc will be the branches of the main National Highway 44.
6. Suffixes A, B, C, D, etc are added to the three-digit sub highways to indicate very small spin-offs or stretches of sub-highways. For example, 966A, 527B, etc.

National Highways Authority of India (NHAI)

• National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) was set up under NHAI Act, 1988. It is under the administrative control of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.
• It has been entrusted with the National Highways Development Project, along with other minor projects for development, maintenance and management.
  • National Highways Development Project (NHDP) is a project to upgrade, rehabilitate and widen major highways in India to a higher standard. The project was started in 1998.
• NHAI (an autonomous authority) maintains the National Highways network to global standards and cost effective manner and promotes economic well being and quality of life of the people.
• It has completed construction of 3,979 km of national highways in the financial Year 2019-20.
• NHAI has mandated development of about 27,500 km of national highways under Bharatmala Pariyojna Phase-I.
  • Bharatmala Pariyojana is an umbrella program for the highways sector that focuses on optimizing efficiency of freight and passenger movement across the country by bridging critical infrastructure gaps through effective interventions.
  • The effective interventions include development of Economic Corridors, Inter Corridors and Feeder Routes, National Corridor Efficiency Improvement, Border and International connectivity roads, Coastal and Port connectivity roads and Green-field expressways.

List of Important National Highways in India

NH-1

• National Highway 1 (NH 1) in India runs between the union territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh.
• It comprises parts of old NH1A and NH1D.
• The number 1 indicates, under the new numbering system, that it is the northernmost East-West highway in India.