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$7.2 billion). The project was planned in 1999, launched in 2001, and was completed in 7 January 2012.
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 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.
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.
The Mumbai–Nagpur High-Speed Rail Corridor is a proposed high-speed rail line connecting Maharashtra's two major cities, Mumbai and Nagpur. It will be the second line which links Mumbai.
The Bharatmala Pariyojna is an ongoing project that will interconnect 550 District Headquarters through a minimum 4-lane highway by raising the number of corridors to 50 and move 80% freight traffic to National Highways by interconnecting 24 logistics parks, 66 inter-corridors (IC) of total 8,000 km (5,000 mi), 116 feeder routes (FR) of total 7,500 km (4,700 mi) and 7 north east Multi-Modal waterway ports. The project also includes development of tunnels, bridges, elevated corridors, flyovers, overpass, interchanges, bypasses, ring roads etc. to provide shortest, jam free & optimized connectivity to multiple places, it is a centrally-sponsored and funded Road and Highways project of the Government of India. This ambitious umbrella programme will subsume all existing Highway Projects including the flagship National Highways Development Project (NHDP), launched by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 1998. Bharatmala is mainly focused on connecting remote areas and satellite cities of megacities such as Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad etc. The total investment for 83,677 km (51,994 mi) committed new highways is estimated at ₹10.63 lakh crore (US$130 billion), making it the single largest outlay for a government road construction scheme. The project will build highways from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana and then cover the entire string of Himalayan territories - Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand - and then portions of borders of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar alongside Terai, and move to West Bengal, Sikkim, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, and right up to the Indo-Myanmar border in Manipur and Mizoram. Special emphasis will be given on providing connectivity to far-flung border and rural areas including the tribal and backward areas.
National Highway 275 (NH-275), also commonly referred to as Bengaluru–Mysuru access-controlled Expressway, part of the Bengaluru–Mangaluru Economic Corridor (EC-34), is a national highway that starts from Bengaluru and goes through Mysuru as a 6-lane expressway of 119 km (74 mi), and again as 4-lane till Bilikere, and ends at Bantwal. This highway connects the coastal city of Mangaluru to Bengaluru. It is also a bypass route for the National Highway 75 (NH-75). The Bengaluru to Mysuru section of this highway was upgraded from 4 to 10 lanes, out of which the 6-lane section is the main elevated access-controlled carriageway and the other 2-lane section on both ends of the carriageway are service roads. It claims to reduce the travel time between Bengaluru and Mysuru from 3 hours to 75 minutes.
Delhi–Amritsar–Katra Expressway is an approved 670 km (420 mi) long, 4-lane wide controlled-access expressway, which will connect Bahadurgarh border near Delhi with Katra in Jammu and Kashmir via Haryana and Punjab. It will have a spur section which will connect Nakodar with Sri Guru Ram Das Ji International Airport located in Raja Sansi, Amritsar. The 397.7 km (247.1 mi) long Delhi–Katra Expressway is National Expressway 5(NE-5) and 99 km (62 mi) long Nakodar-Amritsar Expressway is National Expressway 5A(NE-5A). Once completed, it will reduce the current Delhi-Katra distance from 727 km (452 mi) to 588 km (365 mi) and the time travel will be reduced from 14 hours to 6 hours, and Delhi-Amritsar distance to 405 km (252 mi) and from the time travel will be reduced from 8 hours to only 4 hours.
The Delhi–Mumbai Expressway is a 1,350 km long, 8-lane wide under-construction access-controlled expressway connecting India's national capital New Delhi to its financial capital Mumbai. The foundation stone for the project was laid by union minister of Road Transport & Highways Nitin Gadkari in the presence of Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley on 8 March 2019 and it was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The total project value including the land acquisition cost is around ₹1,00,000 crores . It is expected to be completed by the October 2025.
The Samruddhi Mahamarg or Nagpur-Mumbai Expressway and Maharashtra Expressway-2 (ME-2), is a partially opened 6-lane wide, 701-km long access-controlled expressway in Maharashtra, India. It is amongst the country's longest greenfield road projects, which will connect the two capital cities of the state, its capital, Mumbai, and its third-largest and alternate capital city, Nagpur. The project is being led by the state infrastructure arm Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC), and is designed under the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) model.
Nagpur-Hyderabad-Bengaluru Expressway, also known as Nagpur–Bengaluru Expressway, is a proposed 1,100 km (680 mi) long, eight-lane, greenfield access-controlled expressway, which will connect the third largest city of Maharashtra, Nagpur with the capital of Karnataka, Bengaluru, through the capital of Telangana, Hyderabad. It will pass through four states–Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. It will reduce both travel time and distance, from the current 24 hours to only 12 hours, and from around 1,200 km (750 mi) to 1,100 km (680 mi). It will have two sections–one from Nagpur to Hyderabad and another from Hyderabad to Bengaluru. It will be operated and maintained by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). The project will be built at a cost of ₹ 35,000 crore, and is expected to be completed before 2030.
The Trans-Haryana Expressway or the Ambala–Narnaul Expressway (NH-152D) is a 227-km long, 6-lane wide greenfield access-controlled expressway, connecting the cities of Ambala and Narnaul in the state of Haryana. The expressway connects Gangheri village in Kurukshetra district with Surana village on Narnaul Bypass (NH-148B) in Mahendragarh district. It passes via Kaul, Pundri, Assandh, Dhatrath, Kalanaur, Charkhi Dadri and Kanina. It will reduce the distance from Chandigarh to Delhi, Narnaul, and Jaipur, thus decongesting NH-44 and NH-48.
Amritsar–Jamnagar Expressway (NH-754A) is an under-construction 1,257 km long, 6-lane wide expressway in the north-western part of India. The expressway will reduce the distance between Amritsar and Jamnagar from earlier 1,430 km to 1,316 km and the time travel from 26 hours to only 13 hours. It is a part of the Bharatmala and Amritsar–Jamnagar Economic Corridor (EC-3). It will pass through four states of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Gujarat.
Ahmedabad–Dholera Expressway is a 109 km (68 mi) long, four-lane wide access-controlled under-construction expressway in Gujarat, India. It will connect Sardar Patel Ring Road near Sarkhej in Ahmedabad with Adhelai village in Bhavnagar district via Dholera Special Investment Region (DSIR). The proposed Dholera International Airport near Navagam, about 20 km (12 mi) from Dholera SIR will also lie in the route.
Raipur–Visakhapatnam Expressway (NH-130CD), part of Raipur–Visakhapatnam Economic Corridor (EC-15), is an under-construction, six-lane, 464 km (288 mi) long greenfield expressway, which will pass through the states of Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh in central and east-central India. At present, from Durg, it runs between NH-30 and NH-130C till Borigumma, then runs east of NH-26 till Sunabeda and then west of NH-26 till Visakhapatnam after terminating with NH-16 at Vizianagaram. Along the new route, it will connect Raipur by starting at Abhanpur in Raipur district with the cities of Dhamtari, Kanker, Kondagaon, Koraput, and Sabbavaram before terminating at Visakhapatnam Port.
Vijayawada–Hyderabad Expressway is a 247 km long, 4/6 lane wide tolled expressway that connects Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh with Hyderabad in Telangana. It was opened for public in October 2012. The project was undertaken by concessionaire GMR Hyderabad Vijayawada Expressways Private Limited, a subsidiary of GMR Group on a Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) basis. It is one of the busiest expressways in India and is a part of National Highway 65, which connects Machilipatnam to Pune.
Varanasi–Kolkata Expressway, also known as Varanasi–Ranchi–Kolkata Expressway, and NH-319B, is an approved 610 km (380 mi) long, six-lane, greenfield access-controlled expressway, which will connect the spiritual city of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh with the capital of West Bengal, Kolkata, through the capital of Jharkhand, Ranchi. It will run almost parallel to the Grand Trunk Road or the Asian Highway 1, and will pass through four states–Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal. The expressway is a part of Bharatmala Pariyojana, and it will reduce both travel time and distance, from 12-14 hours to only 6-7 hours, and from 690 km (430 mi) to 610 km (380 mi). It will start from Chandauli district in Uttar Pradesh, and will terminate near Uluberia, Howrah district, West Bengal.
Atal Progress-Way, also known as Chambal Expressway, is an approved 404 km (251 mi) long, six-lane access-controlled greenfield expressway, which will connect the city of Kota in Rajasthan with the city of Etawah in Uttar Pradesh, through the famous city of Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh. It will pass through three states–Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. The expressway is a part of Bharatmala Pariyojana. The government's aim is to develop the economically backward regions of Chambal division and Gwalior division of Madhya Pradesh through the expressway. The expressway will reduce both travel time and distance, from 10-11 hours at present, to only 6-7 hours, and from 490 km (300 mi) to 404 km (251 mi). It will be built at a cost of approximately ₹ 23,700 crore, which was earlier slated at ₹ 20,000 crore. The expressway has been named as Atal Progress-Way after the former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and also because he was born in Gwalior, nearby which the expressway will pass.
Surat–Chennai Expressway is an under-construction, 1,271 km (790 mi) long, 4/6-lane 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 16 hours, and from approximately 1,570 km (980 mi) to 1,271 km (790 mi). It is being 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.
