National Highways in India

• India has the second largest road network in the world with a total length of 46.90 Lakh kilometres. The road network 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. Currently, around 1200 kilometres length is covered by express highways, highest category of roads in the Indian road network
• Roads handle around 60% of freight and 87% passenger traffic in the country.

National Highways

As of August 2015, India has one Lakh kilometres of National Highways connecting major cities and state capitals. Most of these highways are in two lanes. Around 1300 kilometres have been converted into four and six lane expressways.

Key Facts

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 Expressways

India has two National Expressways viz. National Expressway-1 (NE-1) and National Expressway-2 (NE-2).

National Expressway-1: Ahmedabad Vadodara Expressway has been designated as National Expressway-1, also known as Mahatma Gandhi Expressway. It is a 93 kilometres 4 lane expressway built by Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in early 2000s.

National Expressway-2: The Sonipat (Kundli)-Ghaziabad-Palwal expressway is the National Expressway-2. It is still under development.

State Expressways

There are 13 state expressways in India including Mumbai-Pune, Ambala-Chandigarh, Delhi-Gurgaon, Delhi-Faridabad, Kundli–Manesar–Palwal, Faridabad-NOIDA-Ghaziabad, Kalyani Expressway, DND Flyway, Bengaluru-Mysore, Chennai HSCTC, Hyderabad Elevated Expressways, Belghoria Expressway and Yamuna Expressway

New Numbering System in National Highways

From 2011, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways had adopted a new systematic numbering of National Highways. This new system will indicate the direction of National Highways whether it is East-West (odd numbers) or North-South (even numbers) and also the geographical region where it is located, increasing from east to west and from north to south.

The new scheme is thus based upon:

1. Orientation
2. Geographic location of the highway.

As per this system, all the north-south oriented highway have even numbers increasing from the east to the west and all east-west oriented highways will be odd numbered increasing from the north to the south of the country.

• As per this scheme , the single longest national highway is NH 44 which will run from Srinagar to Kanyakumari.
• The shortest Highway is 966B,in Kerala from Kundannur in NH 66 in Eranakulam to Wellington Island(Port). The distance is 5.9 km only.
• The map is available on this link

National Highways Authority of India

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, totalling over 70,548 km.

National Highway Development Project

National Highway Development Project (NHDP) is being implemented by NHAI. It involves creation and upgradation of 49,260 kms of roads and highways work and construction in order to boost economic development. The Phase I began in 2000 under the NDA Government and 8,917km National Highway was built during NDA rule.  There are total seven phases so far of which Phase-I was completed. Rest of the phases are either in proposed state or incomplete.  The current 12th plan focuses on completion of ongoing phases of NHDP and also upgradation to four or more lanes of about 32,750 km.

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 criticised 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.

PPC versus EPC in road construction

The road projects were traditionally done under Public Private Partnership. In PPP, the public and private partnership happens in four ways viz. Build Operate & Transfer (BOT), Build-Operate-Transfer (Annuity), Build-Operate-Transfer (Toll) and Design, Build, Finance, Operate & Transfer (DBFOT). Lack of investor interest in PPP projects due to financial reasons and projects not making commercial sense to the developers are major reasons why the governments are moving to Engineering Procurement and Construction (EPC) mode. Many PPP projects of UPA rule plunged into financial, legal and other problems.

EPC is not a new model but is an older model than PPP. Highway projects of 3,055 km were awarded through the EPC mode in 2005-06 but afterwards it rapidly lost its sheen. The next year, only 345 km were awarded, slipping to 89 km in the following year. Under EPC, the government funds the construction and the road developer only has to develop the project in a stipulated period of time. In the BOT mode, the developer invests in the project and recoups it either through tolling rights or annuity. Since EPC contract promise guaranteed price, guaranteed timeline for completion, single point of responsibility and higher control; they were preferred by developers.

EPC mode is being adopted to ensure implementation of projects to specified Standards with a fair degree of certainty relating to cost and time and with a view to enabling a transparent, fair and competitive roll out of National Highway projects.