National Highway (India)

National Highway (India)

The National Highways Network of India, is a network of highways that is managed and maintained by agencies of the Government of India. These highways measured over 70,934 km (44,076 mi) as of 2010, including over 1,000 km (620 mi) of limited-access Expressways. Out of 71,000 km of National Highways 15,000 plus kms are 4 or 6 laned and remaining 50,000 km are still 2 laned.

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is the nodal agency responsible for building, upgrading and maintaining most of the national highways network. It operates 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 highway network. NHAI often uses a public-private partnership model for highway development, maintenance and toll-collection.

National highways constituted about 2% of all the roads in India, but carried about 40% of the total road traffic as of 2010. The majority of existing national highways are two-lane roads (one lane in each direction), though much of this is being expanded to four-lanes, and some to six or eight lanes. Some sections of the network are toll roads. Over 30,000 km (19,000 mi) of new highways are planned or under construction as part of the NHDP, as of 2011. This includes over 2,600 km (1,600 mi) of Expressways currently under construction.