List of Important National Highways of India

List of Important National Highways of India

Roads handle around 60% of freight and 87% passenger traffic in the country. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is the nodal agency responsible for building, upgrading and maintaining most of the important national highways india network. It operates under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.

The road network in India can be broadly classified into five broad categories viz. Expressway; National Highways (NHs); State Highways (SHs); Other & rural roads. Out of this, only 1 Lakh kms comes under National Highways and 1.60 Lakh kms under state highways. Rest are ‘other’ roads. Thus, only 2% of road length in India is covered under National Highways.

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 single digit or double digit in 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 digit numbered highways are secondary routes or branches of a 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
List of National Highways of India sorted by highway number.

Important Points:

The longest National Highway in India:

National Highway 44 (NH 44), (previously National Highway 7), is longest running major North-South National Highway in India that starts from Srinagar and terminates in Kanyakumari. This national highway passes through the states of Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and ends in the Tamil Nadu state.

The shortest National Highway in India:

National Highway 966B, also known as NH 966B is the shortest National Highway in India. Its old name was NH 47A. It covers a distance of 8 km (5.0 mi) between Kundannoor and Willingdon Island in Kochi, Kerala. It starts from the junction of NH 544 at Kundannoor.

World’s Second Highest Motorable Highway

The Leh-Manali Highway, connecting Shimla to Leh in Ladakh is world’s second highest-altitude motor highway.

National Highways Authority of India (NHAI)

National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is responsible for management of a network of National Highways in India. It is a statutory authority, established by NHAI act, 1988. It was made autonomous in 1995. It is responsible for the development, maintenance, management and operation of National Highways

National Highway Development Project (NHDP)

National Highway Development Project (NHDP) is being implemented by NHAI. It involves creation and up-gradation of roads and highways work and construction in order to boost economic development.

SARDP-NE

NHAI is also helping in implementation of the Special Accelerated Road Development Programme for North Eastern Region (SARDP-NE). SARDP-NE is a project to upgrade National Highways connecting state capitals to 2 lanes or 4 lane in north eastern region.

Funding of NHDP

A part of the fuel cess imposed on petrol and diesel is allocated to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for funding the NHDP. This money goes to Central Road Fund, which was established by the parliament via Central Road Fund Act 2000. This fund is often criticized for slow utilization of money, inappropriate allocation and mismanagement of Fund. The NHAI leverages the cess resources to borrow additional funds from the debt market.