page_title: Roads in India
section_title: National highways
hierarchical_section_title: Roads in India / Roads / National highways
caption_attribution_description: English: National Highway 16 (old NH 5) near Hanumanthawaka in Visakhapatnam
context_page_description: Roads are an important mode of transport in India. India has a network of over 5,897,671 kilometres of roads as of 31 March 2017. This is the second-largest road network in the world, after the United States with 6,645,709 kilometres. At 1.80 kilometres of roads per square kilometre of land, the quantitative density of India's road network is equal to that of Germany, and substantially higher than the United States, China, Brazil and Russia. Adjusted for its large population, India has approximately 4.87 kilometres of roads per 1,000 people. As of 31 March 2017, 63.24% of Indian roads were paved. India's road network carries over 65 percent of its freight and about 85 percent of passenger traffic. It contributed 4.7 percent towards India's gross domestic product. This is in comparison to railways, which contributed 1 percent from 2009 to 2010.
  Since the 1990s, major efforts have been underway to modernize the country's road infrastructure. The length of national highways in India has increased from 70,934 km in 2010–11 to 142,126 km in 2018–19.
context_section_description: National highways are highways connecting major cities through-out the country and are at-grade roads. National Highways are designated with NH, followed by the highway number. Indian national highways are further classified based on the width of the carriageway of the highway. India has 142,126 km (88,313 mi) of National Highways as of April 2019. National Highways constituted 2.7% of India's total road network, but carried about 40% of road traffic, as of 2013. In 2016, the government vowed to double the highway length from 96,000 to 2,00,000 km.
  The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is the authority responsible for the development, maintenance and management of the National Highways entrusted to it. The NHAI has been undertaking developmental activities under the National Highways Development Project (NHDP) in five phases. From 2018, the pending projects under NHDP are expected to be subsumed under Bharatmala. The NHAI is also responsible for implementing other projects on National Highways, primarily road connectivity to major ports in India.
  The Golden Quadrilateral and North–South and East–West Corridor were major ongoing highway development projects in India.
caption: National Highway 16 (old NH 5) running through Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, a part of the Golden Quadrilateral highway network
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