National Highways, Expressways and Tunnels of India: Notes

The correct answer is A, NH-44, which runs about 3,745 kilometres from Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir to Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu and is the longest National Highway in the country. It was created in the renumbering of 2010 by merging several older highways, including the old NH-1A, NH-1, NH-2, NH-3, NH-75, NH-26 and NH-7, and it passes through about a dozen states and union territories. Option B, NH-27, is the longest east-west highway, running from Porbandar in Gujarat to Silchar in Assam along the East-West Corridor, and it is the second longest overall, which makes it the strongest distractor. Option C, NH-48, is the busy Delhi-Mumbai-Chennai route that replaced the old NH-8. Option D, NH-16, runs along the eastern coast from Kolkata towards Chennai. Remember the numbering rule as well: NH-44 runs north to south and therefore carries an even number, and even numbers increase from the east coast towards the west.

The correct answer is A, Srinagar and Kanyakumari. NH-44 begins at Srinagar in the Kashmir valley and ends at Kanyakumari at the southern tip of the peninsula, covering about 3,745 kilometres and passing through Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. It therefore follows the alignment of the old North-South Corridor of the National Highways Development Project. Option B, Porbandar to Silchar, is the East-West Corridor, carried largely by NH-27, which is the longest east-west highway. Option C, Delhi to Mumbai, is covered by NH-48 on the road and by the new Delhi-Mumbai Expressway. Option D, Kolkata to Chennai, is the eastern coastal leg of the Golden Quadrilateral, carried mainly by NH-16. Learn the four corridors and their end points as a set, because the question is usually made by exchanging one pair for another.

The correct answer is B, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai. The Golden Quadrilateral, the first and best known phase of the National Highways Development Project, is a four-lane and six-lane ring of about 5,846 kilometres joining the four metropolitan cities, and it is the single most asked fact in this chapter. Option A names cities that lie on the western leg of the quadrilateral and on the Delhi-Mumbai route, but they are not the four corners. Option C gives the end points and intermediate cities of the North-South Corridor from Srinagar to Kanyakumari, which is a different project of about 4,076 kilometres. Option D lists cities of the Mumbai-Chennai leg and of the Mumbai-Pune Expressway. Keep the three NHDP figures in one line of memory: Golden Quadrilateral about 5,846 kilometres, North-South Corridor about 4,076 kilometres and East-West Corridor about 3,640 kilometres from Silchar to Porbandar.

The correct answer is B, the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, about 94.5 kilometres long, opened fully in 2002 and formally named the Yashwantrao Chavan Expressway. It was the first road in India built as a six-lane concrete expressway with fully controlled access, no crossings at grade and no entry for slow-moving traffic, and it crosses the Sahyadri through a series of tunnels and viaducts. Option A, the Yamuna Expressway, is 165 kilometres from Greater Noida to Agra and was opened in 2012, a decade later. Option C, the Delhi-Meerut Expressway, is about 96 kilometres and belongs to the last decade. Option D, the Agra-Lucknow Expressway, is 302 kilometres and was opened in 2016. All three are genuine expressways, so the question turns purely on which came first, and the date 2002 settles it. The longest expressway project in the country is the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway at 1,386 kilometres.

The correct answer is B, the Rohtang Pass in Himachal Pradesh. The Atal Tunnel is 9.02 kilometres long, was built by the Border Roads Organisation and was inaugurated on 3 October 2020; it connects Manali with the Lahaul valley on the way to Leh, shortens the journey considerably and keeps the route open through the winter months when the pass above is buried in snow. It is described as the world's longest highway tunnel above an altitude of three thousand metres. Option A, Zoji La, on the Srinagar-Leh road, is where a longer tunnel is being driven that will be among the longest in Asia when complete. Option C, Nathu La, is a pass on the Sikkim border with Tibet and is a trade route, not a tunnel site. Option D, the Banihal Pass, is associated with the Jawahar Tunnel and with the Pir Panjal railway tunnel on the Banihal-Qazigund section.

The correct answer is B, 1988. The National Highways Authority of India Act was passed in 1988, and the authority it created became operational in 1995; it develops, maintains and manages the National Highways entrusted to it and is the body behind the Golden Quadrilateral and most of the country's expressways, working under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. Option C, 1995, is the year it actually began functioning, which is the usual trap in this question, so keep the two dates in order: constituted in 1988, operational in 1995. Option A, 1956, is the year of the National Highways Act, the law under which a road is declared a National Highway and tolls are levied. Option D, 2017, is the year the Bharatmala Pariyojana was approved as the umbrella highway programme. Also remember the National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation, set up in 2014 for border and north-eastern roads.

The correct answer is A, odd numbers. In the system adopted in 2010, highways whose general alignment is east to west carry odd numbers, while those running north to south carry even numbers. NH-27, which runs from Porbandar in Gujarat to Silchar in Assam and is the longest east-west highway in the country, is the clearest illustration, as is NH-19 from Delhi to Kolkata. Option B reverses the rule and is the answer most often marked by mistake; even numbers belong to the north-south highways such as NH-44 from Srinagar to Kanyakumari, NH-16 along the east coast and NH-66 along the west coast. Note the order of the numbers too: even numbers increase from east to west and odd numbers increase from north to south. Option C is wrong because three-digit numbers are not a direction at all; they are given to the subsidiary routes of a main highway, so NH-344 is a branch connected with NH-44. Option D is wrong because letters are only suffixes, as in NH-966B, used to mark a spur or branch of the parent highway rather than to replace a number.

The correct answer is B, the Border Roads Organisation. The BRO was raised in 1960 to build and maintain the roads of the frontier regions, works under the Ministry of Defence, and has to its credit the Atal Tunnel under the Rohtang Pass as well as some of the highest motorable roads in Ladakh. Option A, the National Highways Authority of India, was constituted in 1988 and is responsible for the National Highways and most expressways, but it functions under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and is not a defence organisation. Option C, the National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation, was created in 2014 and does take up roads in border and north-eastern areas, which makes it the cleverest distractor, but it too sits under the highways ministry and did not build this tunnel. Option D, the Central Public Works Department, builds government offices and residences, not strategic mountain roads.

The correct answer is B, Uttar Pradesh. The Purvanchal Expressway runs about 340.8 kilometres from the Lucknow area to Ghazipur in the eastern part of the state and includes a runway stretch on which air force aircraft can land in an emergency, a feature that made it a favourite with question setters. Uttar Pradesh has the largest network of expressways among the states, including the Yamuna Expressway of 165 kilometres, the Agra-Lucknow Expressway of 302 kilometres, the Bundelkhand Expressway of 296 kilometres and the Ganga Expressway of 594 kilometres from Meerut to Prayagraj. Option A, Bihar, is crossed by National Highways but not by this expressway. Option C, Madhya Pradesh, carries a long stretch of the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway. Option D, Maharashtra, has the Mumbai-Pune Expressway and the 701-kilometre Samruddhi Mahamarg from Mumbai to Nagpur. Match each expressway to its state before the exam, since that is the usual form of the question.

The correct answer is B, Nagpur. The Samruddhi Mahamarg, formally named after Balasaheb Thackeray, is an access-controlled expressway of about 701 kilometres built entirely within Maharashtra, joining Mumbai with Nagpur across the state and passing near several district headquarters of Marathwada and Vidarbha, which is why it is presented as a corridor of economic development rather than only a road. Option A, Pune, is connected to Mumbai by the older and much shorter Mumbai-Pune Expressway of about 94.5 kilometres, opened in 2002 as India's first access-controlled expressway, and that is the pairing most often confused with this one. Option C, Surat, lies on the Mumbai-Delhi route served by NH-48 and the new Delhi-Mumbai Expressway, and it is in Gujarat, not Maharashtra. Option D, Hyderabad, is linked to Mumbai by National Highway and lies in Telangana. Note that this expressway lies wholly within one state.