Transport in India consists of transport by land, water and air. Road transport is the primary mode of transport for most Indian citizens, and India's road transport systems are among the most heavily used in the world.
The Golden Quadrilateral is a national highway network connecting several major industrial, agricultural and cultural centres of India. It forms a quadrilateral with all the four major metro cities of India forming the vertices, viz., Delhi (north), Kolkata (east), Mumbai (west) and Chennai (south). Other major cities connected by this network include Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Balasore, Bhadrak, Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Berhampur, Durgapur, Faridabad, Guntur, Gurugram, Jaipur, Kanpur, Pune, Kolhapur, Surat, Vijayawada, Eluru, Ajmer, Visakhapatnam, Bodhgaya, Varanasi, Prayagraj, Agra, Mathura, Dhanbad, Gandhinagar, Udaipur, and Vadodara. The main objective of these super highways is to reduce the travel time between the major cities of India, running roughly along the perimeter of the country. The North–South corridor linking Srinagar and Kanyakumari, and East–West corridor linking Silchar (Assam) and Porbandar (Gujarat) are additional projects. These highway projects are implemented by the National Highway Authority Of India (NHAI). At 5,846 kilometres (3,633 mi), it is the largest highway project in India and the fifth longest in the world. It is the first phase of the National Highways Development Project (NHDP), and consists of two, four, and six-lane express highways, built at a cost of ₹600 billion (US$7.5 billion). The project was planned in 1999, launched in 2001, and was completed in 7 January 2012.
The National highways in India are a network of trunk 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. India started four laning of major national highways with the National Highway Development Project (NHDP). As of March 2022 India have approximately 35,000 km of four laned National highways.
The National Highways Authority of India or NHAI is an autonomous agency of the Government of India, set up in 1995 and is responsible for management of a road network of over 50,000 km of National highways out of 1,32,499 km in India. It is a nodal agency of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH). NHAI has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for satellite mapping of highways.
Roads in India are an important mode of transport in India. India has a network of over 6,331,791 kilometres (3,934,393 mi) of roads. This is the second-largest road network in the world, after the United States. At of roads per square kilometre of land, the quantitative density of India's road network is equal to that of Hong Kong, and substantially higher than the United States, China, Brazil and Russia. Adjusted for its large population, India has approximately 5.13 kilometres (3.19 mi) of roads per 1,000 people, which is much lower than United States 20.5 kilometres (12.7 mi) but higher than that of China 3.6 kilometres (2.2 mi). India's road network carries over 71% of its freight and about 85% of passenger traffic.
The North–South–East–West r (NS-EW) is the largest ongoing highway project in India. It is the second phase of the National Highways Development Project (NHDP), and consists of building 7300 kilometers of four/six lane highways associating Srinagar, Kanyakumari, Kochi, Porbandar and Silchar, at a cost of US$12.317 billion ₹1000000000000(One lakh Crore INR). As of 19 March 2024, 6875 of the 7142 kilometers project has been finished.
The National Highways Development Project (NHDP) was a project of four laning of existing national highways and six laning of selected major national highways of India. The project was started in 1998 under the leadership of Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee. National Highways account for only about 2% of the total length of roads, but carry about 40% of the total traffic across the length and breadth of the country. This project is managed by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) under the Ministry of Road, Transport and Highways. The NHDP represents 49,260 km of roads and highways work and construction in order to boost economic development of the country. The government has planned to end the NHDP program in early 2018 and subsume the ongoing projects under a larger Bharatmala project.
Kerala, a state in Southern India, has a network of 11 National Highways, 72 State Highways and many district roads.
National Highway 44 is a major north–south National Highway in India and is the longest in the country.
Expressways are the highest class of roads in India. In July 2023, the total length of expressways in India was 5,579 km (3,467 mi), with 8,366 km (5,198 mi) under construction. These are controlled-access highways where entrance and exits are controlled by the use of cloverleaf or trumpet or grade separated interchanges that are incorporated into the design of the expressway and designed for maximum speed of 120 km/h, whereas National highways are flyover access or tolled, where entrance and exit is through the side of the flyover, at each intersection of highway with road, flyovers are provided to bypass the city/town/village traffic and these highways are designed for speed of 100 km/h. Some roads are not access-controlled expressways but are still named expressways, such as the Biju Expressway, these are actually state highways that are not declared by the central government as an Expressway, hence not an Expressway or National Highway.
In India, this is the network of roads maintained by the state governments. These roads are constructed and managed by the states' Public Works Department. The state highways are usually roads that link important cities, towns and district headquarters within the state and connect them with National Highways or state highways of neighbouring states.
The Bengaluru–Chennai Expressway, or National Expressway 7 (NE-7), is an under construction 258 km (160 mi) long, 4-lane wide access-controlled expressway between the cities of Bengaluru, the capital of Karnataka and Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu. It will run from Hoskote in Bengaluru Metropolitan Region Development Authority to Sriperumbudur in Chennai Metropolitan Area. It is planned to allow vehicles to reach 120 km/h (75 mph). The road was designated as a National Expressway on 1 January 2021. The total project value is ₹17,930 crore. The Expressway is expected to be completed before the end of 2025, despite earlier dates announced by the national Minister for Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari.
The Diamond Quadrilateral is a project of the Indian Railways to establish a high-speed rail network in India. The Diamond Quadrilateral will connect the four mega cities of India, viz. Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, similar to the Golden Quadrilateral highway system.
Arunachal Frontier Highway (AFH), officially notified as the National Highway NH-913 and also called Bomdila-Vijaynagar Highway (BVH), connecting Bomdila Airstrip ALG & HQ in northwest to Vijaynagar Airstrip ALG & HQ in southeast via Nafra HQ-Sarli HQ-Huri Helipad ALG & HQ-Nacho HQ-Mechuka Airstrip ALG & HQ-Monigong HQ-Jido -Hunli HQ-Hayuliang Airstrip ALG HQ-Chenquenty-Hawai HQ-Miao HQ including 800 km greenfield section and network of new tunnels & bridges, is a 2-lane paved-shoulder under-construction national highway along the India-China LAC-McMahon Line border in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. The 1,748 km-long (1,086 mi) highway itself will cost ₹27,000 crore and total cost including 6 additional inter-corridors is ₹40,000 crore. In some places, this highway will run as close as 20 km from the LAC. To be constructed by MoRTH in 9 packages, all packages will be approved by the end of fy 2024-25 and construction will be completed in 2 years by 31 March 2027. Of the total route, 800km is greenfield, rest brownfield will be upgraded and tunnels will be built. This highway in the north & east Arunachal along the China border, would complement the Trans-Arunachal Highway and the Arunachal East-West Corridor as major highways spanning the whole state, pursuing the Look East connectivity policy.
Delhi–Meerut Expressway or National Expressway 3 is India's widest 96 km long controlled-access expressway, connecting Delhi with Meerut via Dasna in Ghaziabad in India. The 8 lanes old stretch of National Highway 9 (NH-9) up to Dasna is widened to 14 lanes. The fourth phase of the expressway is built on a new alignment from Dasna to Meerut – a six-lane stretch joining Meerut bypass. The 28 km (17 mi) stretch between Nizamuddin Bridge and Dasna is one of the most congested areas in the NCR. The total project cost is estimated to be between ₹8,000–10,000 crores.
Setu Bharatam was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 4 March 2016 at a budget of ₹102 billion (US$1.3 billion), with an aim to make all national highways free of railway crossings by 2019.
India–China Border Roads is a Government of India project for developing infrastructure along the Sino-Indian border by constructing strategic roads, including bridges and tunnels. The ICBR project is largely in response to Chinese infrastructure development along the borderlands with India.
Surat–Chennai Expressway is an under-construction, 1,271 km (790 mi) long, 4/6-lanes. access-controlled expressway, which will connect the second largest city of Gujarat, Surat, with the capital of Tamil Nadu, Chennai, in India. It will pass through six states: Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. It will be operated and maintained by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), and will reduce both travel time and distance from around 35 hours to around 18 hours, and from approximately 1,570 km (980 mi) to 1,271 km (790 mi). It will be built at a cost of ₹ 45,000 crore (~US$5.5 billion), which was earlier slated at ₹ 50,000 crore. It will be the second longest expressway in India, after the Delhi–Mumbai Expressway.
The Bengaluru–Vijayawada Expressway, also known as Bengaluru–Kadapa–Vijayawada (BKV) Expressway and classified as NH-544G, is an under-construction 518 km (322 mi)-long, six-lane access-controlled expressway between the cities of Bengaluru, the capital of Karnataka and Vijayawada, the second-largest city of Andhra Pradesh. It will pass through 11 districts of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh–3 in Karnataka and 8 in Andhra Pradesh. It will start from the existing National Highway 44 (NH-44) at Kodikonda in Sri Sathya Sai district of Andhra Pradesh, which connects Bengaluru and beyond to the south, pass through the Rayalaseema region and end in National Highway 16 (NH-16) at Addanki in Bapatla district of Andhra Pradesh, which connects Vijayawada and eastern India to the north. By joining the existing national highways to link the two cities, the overall length of the expressway is about 624 km (388 mi). It will be operated and maintained by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), and will reduce both travel time and distance by 12–13 hours to only 8–9 hours, and from 630 km to 518 km. It will be built at a cost of about ₹14,000 crore (US$1.8 billion), which was earlier slated at ₹19,320 crore (US$2.4 billion). It is also named as the 'BKV Expressway', as it will bypass Kadapa and its district.
Indiaportal 
