The national highways in India are a network of limited access roads owned by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. National highways have flyover access or some controlled-access, where entrance and exit is through the side of the flyover. At each highway intersection, flyovers are provided to bypass the traffic on the city, town, or village. These highways are designed for speeds of 100 km/h. Some national highways have interchanges in between, but do not have total controlled-access throughout the highways. The highways are constructed and managed by the Central Public Works Department (CPWD), the National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL), and the public works departments (PWD) of state governments. Currently, the longest national highway in India is National Highway 44 at 4,112 km (2,555 mi). India started to increase the number of lanes of major national highways to 4 or more with the National Highway Development Project (NHDP). India has approximately 35,000 km of four-lane National highways.

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and the National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL) are the nodal agencies responsible for building, upgrading, and maintaining most of the National Highways network. Both operate under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. The National Highways Development Project (NHDP) is a major effort to expand and upgrade the network of highways. NHAI often uses a public–private partnership model for highway maintenance, and toll-collection. NHIDCL uses the Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) model to build, develop and maintain strategic roads in international borders of the country.

In India, National Highways are at-grade roads, whereas expressways are controlled-access highways where entrance and exit is controlled by the use ramps that are incorporated into the design of the expressway. National Highways follows standards set by Indian Roads Congress and Bureau of Indian Standards.

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Characteristics

India has of national highways as of March 2022 compared to 101,011 km in FY 2013–14.NATIONALHighways construction touches record 37 km per day: Gadkari The Hindu. Retrieved 29 August 2021 In July 2023, Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari claimed total length of the national highways in the country increased by about 59% in the span of the last nine years.

As of 2013, National highways constituted 2.7% of India's total road network, but carried about 40% of road traffic. In 2016, the government vowed to double the highway length from 101,011 to 200,000 km.

The majority of existing highways are now four-lane roads (two lanes in each direction), though much of this is being expanded to six or more lanes. Some sections of the network are toll roads. Only a few highways are built with concrete. Bypasses have been constructed around larger towns and cities to provide uninterrupted passage for highway traffic. Some existing roads have been reclassified as national highways.

History

The National Highways Act, 1956 provided for public i.e. state investment in the building and maintenance of the highways.

The National Highways Authority of India was established by the National Highways Authority of India Act, 1988. Section 16(1) of the Act states that the function of NHAI is to develop, maintain, and manage the National Highways and any other highways vested in, or entrusted to, it by the Government of India.

In 1998 India launched a massive program of highway upgrades, called the National Highways Development Project (NHDP), in which the main north–south and east–west corridors and highways connecting the four metropolitan cities (Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata) have been fully paved and widened into four-lane highways. Some of the busier National Highway sectors in India were also converted to four- or six-lane limited-access highways.

The National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited started functioning as of 18 July 2014. It is a fully owned company of the Government of India, under the administrative control of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, and was created to develop, maintain and manage the national highways, strategic roads and other infrastructure of India. It was dedicated to the task of promoting regional connectivity in parts of the country which share international boundaries. It is responsible for the development, maintenance and management of National Highways in hilly terrain of North-East part of India, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh and Uttarakhand. It works as a specialised agency in high altitude areas and border areas. Apart from highways, NHIDCL is constructing logictic hubs and transport related infrastructure e.g. multimodal transport hubs such as bus ports, container depots, automated multilevel car parking etc.

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways adopted a new systematic numbering of National Highways in April 2010. It is a systematic numbering scheme based on the orientation and the geographic location of the highway. The new system indicates the direction of National Highways whether they are east–west (odd numbers) or north–south (even numbers). It also indicates the geographical region where they are with even numbers increasing from east to west starting from NH2 and odd numbers increasing from north to south starting from NH1.

Bharatmala, a centrally-sponsored and funded road and highways project of the Government of India with a target of constructing of new highways, was started in 2018. Phase I of the Bharatmala project involves the construction of 34,800 km of highways (including the remaining projects under NHDP) at an estimated cost of by 2021–22.

List of national highways in India

Expanding National Highway Network The average speed of NH construction has also seen a significant increase, from a baseline of 12.1 km/day in 2014 rising to 28.3 km/day (143%).

The speed of highway construction reached 37 km per day in 2020-21, a record for fastest highway construction in India.

Network length

+National Highways in India, by state and union territories and maintaining agencyState / union territory State PWDNHAINHIDCLTotal length as on 31.03.2019 (km) Andaman and Nicobar Islands 87331 Andhra Pradesh 6,912 Arunachal Pradesh 1,0352,537 Assam 1,0103,909 Bihar 5,358 Chandigarh 15 Chhattisgarh 3,605 Dadra and Nagar Haveli 31 Daman and Diu 22 Delhi 157 Goa 293 Gujarat 6,635 Haryana 3,166 Himachal Pradesh 3202,607 Jammu & Kashmir 4362,423 Jharkhand 3,367 Karnataka 7,335 Kerala 1,782 Lakshadweep 0 Madhya Pradesh 8,772 Maharashtra 17,757 Manipur 1,7511,750 Meghalaya 8231,156 Mizoram 3721,422.5 Nagaland 3241,548 Odisha 5,762 Puducherry 27 Punjab 3,274 Rajasthan 10,342 Sikkim 595463 Tamil Nadu 6,742 Telangana 3,795 Tripura573854 Uttarakhand 6602,949 Uttar Pradesh 11,737 West Bengal 43,664 India total 48,5907,990132,500

Year wise national highways in India, by state and union territory As at end-March and length in kms.

Source: Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Government of India.Table 123: State-wise Length of National Highways 2005 - 2019 Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Government of India

State/union territory 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011201220132014Andaman and Nicobar Islands 300 300 300 300 300 300 300300 300 300Andhra Pradesh 4472 4472447244724537453745374537 5022 6590Arunachal Pradesh 392 392392392199219921992202720272027Assam 2836 2836283628362836283628362940 2940 3634Bihar 35373642364236423642364236424106 4168 4467Chandigarh 24 24 24 24 24 24 24 242424Chhattisgarh 2184 2184218421842184218421842289 2289 3031Delhi 72 727272728080808080Goa 269 269 269 269 269 269 269 269 269 269 Gujarat 2871 3245 324532453245324532454032 3828 4694Haryana 1468 1512 151215121512151815181633 1633 2050Himachal Pradesh 1208 1208120812081409140914091506 1506 2196Jammu and Kashmir823 1245 124512451245124512451245 1695 2319Jharkhand 1805 1805180518051805180518052170 2374 2968Karnataka 3843 3843384338434396439643964396 4642 6177Kerala 1440 1440144014571457145714571457 1457 1700Madhya Pradesh 5200 4670 4670 4670 4670 5027 50275064 5116 5116Maharashtra 4176 4176 4176 4176 4176 419141914257 4498 6249Manipur 9599599599599599599591317 1317 1452Meghalaya 810 810810810810810810117111711171Mizoram 927 9279279279279279271027 1027 122Nagaland 494 494494494494494494494 494 741 Odisha 3704 3704370437043704370437043704 4416 4550Puducherry 53 535353535353535353Punjab 1557 1557 1557 1557 1557 1557 15571557 1557 1699 Rajasthan 5585 5585558555855585558555857130 7180 7646Sikkim 62 626262626262149149149Tamil Nadu 4183 4462 44624462483248324832494349434975Telangana . .........Tripura 400 400400400400400400400 400 509Uttar Pradesh 5599 5874 5874 5874 6774 6774 6774781878187986Uttarakhand 1991 199119911991204220422042204220422282West Bengal 2325 2377 2377 2524 2578 2578 2578268126812908All India 65569 66590 66590 66754 70548 70934 709347681879116 91287

State-wise length of National Highways

Note: Yearly data for 2018 and 2020 are not available.

State/union territory 20152016 2017 2019 2021202220232024Andaman and Nicobar Islands 331331331331 331 Andhra Pradesh 4670 5465 6383 69127340 Arunachal Pradesh 2513 2513 2537 25372537 Assam 3784 3821 3845 39093936 Bihar 4701 4839 4839 53585421 Chandigarh 15 15 15 1515 Chhattisgarh 3079 3078 3523 36053620 Delhi 808079 157157 Goa 262 262 293 293299 Gujarat 4971 4971 5456 66357744 Haryana 2307 2622 2741 31663237 Himachal Pradesh 2466 2642 2643 26072607 Jammu and Kashmir2593 2601 2601 24232423 Jharkhand 2632 2654 2661 33673367 Karnataka 6432 6503 6991 73357412 Kerala 1811 1812 1782 17821782 Madhya Pradesh 5184 5194 8053 87728941 Maharashtra 7048 7435 16239 1775717931 Manipur 1746 1746 1746 17501750 Meghalaya 1204 1203 1204 11561156 Mizoram 1381 1381 1423 14231423 Nagaland 1080 1150 1547 15481548 Odisha 4645 4838 5413 57625897 Puducherry 64 64 64 2764 Punjab 2239 2769 3228 32744099 Rajasthan 7886 7906 8972 1034210350 Sikkim 309 463 463 463709 Tamil Nadu 5006 4946 5918 67426858 Telangana 2687 2696 3786 37953974 Tripura 577 805 854 854854 Uttar Pradesh 8483 8483 9017 1173711831 Uttarakhand 2842 2714 2842 29493106 West Bengal 2910 2956 3004 36643665 All India97991 101011 120493 132500136440

Funding National Highways Authority of India has enough funds to increase the pace of road building. At the listing ceremony of the National Highways Infra Trust's (NHAI InVITs) non-convertible debentures, the National Highway Infra Trust issued and listed Non-Convertible Debentures (NCDs) worth Rs 1,500 crore on the Bombay Stock Exchange, with a long-dated maturity of 25 years.

NHAI collected tolls worth Rs 34,742 crore on national highways in FY22. Additionally NHAI toll revenue is expected to rise to Rs. 1.40 lakh crores by 2028.

Future Brownfield National Highway Projects is an upgrading/widening of existing four lane highways into six lane highways which are not controlled access highways.

Trivia

The longest national highway is NH44,"New numbers for national highways ". Maps of India. which runs between Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir and Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu, covering a distance of . The shortest national highway is NH766EE,"List of highways in Karnatakaa". nhai.gov.in."National Highway 536 ". India9.com. which spans , from Hettikeri to Belekeri port in Karnataka.