ROADWAYS IN INDIA

abhishreshthaa

New member
ROADS


India has 3.3 million kilometers of road network, which is one of the largest in the world. Roads occupy an eminent position in transportation as they; carry nearly 65% of freight and 87% of passenger traffic.


Traffic on roads is growing at a rate of 7-10% per annum while the vehicle population growth, for the past few years, is of the order of 12% per annum. At the end of March 2001, national highways were 57,737 km connecting important towns’ cities, ports and industrial centres of the country.


During the current year, a further length of 375 km has been added to the national highway network and at present it stands at 58,112 km.


The road system in the country is being improved by widening and strengthening existing highways, reconstruction/ widening of the bridges and constructing bypasses.


 Estimates show that Indian roads carry almost 67 per cent of freight and 8 per cent of passengers annually.
 In India, road traffic is growing at a considerable pace. According to estimates, traffic on roads is growing at a rate of 7 to 10 per cent per annum. The growth in the number of vehicles has been around 12 per cent per annum.


 The Indian road network is divided into three main categories:

 National highways (interstate) covering over 58,000 kilometres.


 State highways covering approximately 200,000 kilometres.


 Rural and urban roads covering nearly 3 million kilometres.


 The national highways cater to about 45 per cent of the road transport demand in the country. The government has embarked upon an integrated National Highways Development Programme (NHDP). A major part of NHDP is the Golden Quadrilateral project. It entails upgrading and widening of 6,000 km of highways connecting the four major metropolitan cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata.


 The government is also undertaking the North-South and East-West Corridor projects. These projects comprise about 7,000 Kms of highways connecting Srinagar (North) with Kanyakumari (South) and Silchar (East) with Porbandar (West).
The number of foreign investors in the Indian road sector has been increasing over the years.
 
Top