Indian Economy
National Highways Authority of India
- 28 May 2020
- 3 min read
Why in News
The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has directed its Regional Officers (ROs) and Project Directors (PDs) to undertake maintenance of the National Highways ahead of the monsoon season.
- NHAI will be monitoring the progress through its Project Management Software – Data Lake where pictures of before and after repair works would be uploaded, apart from other repair related information.
Key Points
- National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) was set up under NHAI Act, 1988. It is under the administrative control of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.
- It has been entrusted with the National Highways Development Project, along with other minor projects for development, maintenance and management.
- National Highways Development Project (NHDP) is a project to upgrade, rehabilitate and widen major highways in India to a higher standard. The project was started in 1998.
- NHAI maintains the National Highways network to global standards and cost effective manner and promotes economic well being and quality of life of the people.
- It has completed construction of 3,979 km of national highways in the financial Year 2019-20.
- NHAI has mandated development of about 27,500 km of national highways under Bharatmala Pariyojna Phase-I.
- Bharatmala Pariyojana is an umbrella program for the highways sector that focuses on optimizing efficiency of freight and passenger movement across the country by bridging critical infrastructure gaps through effective interventions.
- The effective interventions include development of Economic Corridors, Inter Corridors and Feeder Routes, National Corridor Efficiency Improvement, Border and International connectivity roads, Coastal and Port connectivity roads and Green-field expressways.
National Highways
- National Highways (NH) are the arterial roads of the country for inter-state movement of passengers and goods.
- They traverse the length and width of the country connecting the National and State capitals, major ports and rail junctions and link up with border roads and foreign highways.
- The NHs including Expressways constitute only about 1.7% of the length of all roads, they carry about 40% of the road traffic.
