Classification of roads: In India, roads are of the following types.
National highways,
State highways,
District roads and
Village roads.
Besides these, there are border roads and International highways linking major Indian cities with the capitals of other neighbouring countries.
- National highways:
- They connect the capitals of the states, industrial centres and major ports.
- They are well planned wide roads with two-lane, four-lane, and six-fane roads. Both construction and maintenance are carried out by the Central Government and National Highway Authority of India [NHAI],
- The total length of the national highways is about 71,772 km as per 2011.
- (i) The Golden Quadrilateral,
- (ii) The North South and East West corridors,
- (iii) Port connectivity with industries are all parfbf this network.
1. Golden Quadrilateral Super Highway: The Government of India has implemented a major road development project linking Delhi Kolkata-Chennai-Mumbai by six-lane super high-ways. It has a total length of 5846 kms and it is called as Golden Quadrilateral Super Highway.
2. North – South and East-West corridors: This project connects Srinagar (JK) in the North with Kanyakumari (TN) in the South and Silcher (Assam) in the East with Porbandar (Gujarat) in the West covering major cities along the way. The project has a total length of 7300 km.
3. Port connectivity project: This is also included in the programmes of NHAI. This project connects the Golden Quadrilateral roads with the 13 major ports (380 km) and other projects (962 km). This is still in progress.
4. State Highways: The State Highways connect the important cities of the state with its capital, with the national highways and link with other state capitals. The State Government is responsible for the construction and maintenance of the State Highways. Now there are about 1.54, 522 km length of the state highways in the country.
5. District roads: These roads connect the production and marketing centres with the highways, railways, towns and larger villages with the district headquarters. The Zilla Parishad takes the responsibility of the development and maintenance of these roads.
6. Village roads: Roads which link the taluk headquarters with villages and the district highways are called village roads. They are mostly untarred or metalled. They are constructed and maintained by Taluk Panchayats and Village Panchayats.
7. Border roads: Border roads are constructed in the border areas of the country. They are constructed in the North and North eastern border areas adjoining Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh. These are mainly for army movement in the defence of the country.
8. International highways: Some of the national highways of the country have been linked with the international highways of the neighbouring countries.
