IMPORTANT FACTS ABOUT TRANSPORT IN INDIA (Useful for SSC and other Bank Exams)

·         The present transport system of the country comprises several modes of transport including rail, road, coastal shipping, air transport etc.

ROAD TRANSPORT

·         The share of road in total traffic has been growing from 13.8% of freight traffic and 15.4% of passenger traffic in 1950-51 to an estimated 61% of freight traffic and 85% of passenger traffic by the end of 2003-04.

·         The Tenth Plan (2002-07) outlay for the Central Sector Roads Programme is Rs. 59,700 crore.

·         India is one of the largest road transport systems in the world. The total length of the roads in the country is 3.32 million kms.

·         India’s road network consists of Expressways, National Highways, State Highways, Major District Roads, Other District Roads and Village Roads.

·         The National Highways and the State Highways together account for 1,95,000 km. length.

National Highways

·         They are constructed and maintained by the central government.

·         The National Highways has 65,559 km. length comprising only 1.94% of the total length of roads, carries about 40% of the total traffic of India.

·         The central government has taken up a programme of 4 / 6 lanning of about 13,000 kms. of National Highways (NH) under the National Highways Development Programme (NHDP).

·         This programme includes the ‘Golden Quadrilateral’ (GQ) comprising the National Highways connecting the four metropolitan cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata.

·         The programme of development of National Highways also includes the creation of the North-South Corridor connecting Srinagar to Kanyakumari and East-West Corridor connecting Silchar to Porbander. This component of the NHDP has a total length of about 7,300 kms. and is to be completed by December, 2007.

·         Total length of GQ is 5846 km.

·         As on 31 May 2005, four lanning of about 4856 km length has already been completed.

Some Important National Highways

According to the 2001 census, there are 219 National Highways in the country. Some of them are:

N.H. 1. : Delhi — Ambala — Amritsar — Indo-Pak Border (546 km)

N.H. 2: Delhi — Agra — Kanpur — Varanasi - Kolkata (1490 km)

N.H. 3 : Agra — Gwaliar — Indore — Nasik — Mumbai (1161 km)

N.H. 4: Junction with N.H. 3 near Thane — Belgaum — Bangalore — Ranipet - Chennai (1235 km)

N.H. 7: Varanasi — Jabalpur — Nagpur — Hyderabad — Bangalore — Madurai - Kanyakumari (2369 km).

N.H. 8 : Delhi- Jaipur — Ahmedabad— Vadodara — Mumbai (1428 km)

N.H. 9 : Pune - Solapur — Hyderabad — Vijayawada (791 km)

N.H. 15 : Pathankot — Amritsar — Bhatinda — Ganganagar — Bikaner — Jaisalmer — Kandla (1526 km).

N.H. 22 : Ambala — Kalka — Shimla — Rampur — Indo — Tibet (China) Border near Shipki La (459 km)

N.H. 24 : Delhi — Bareilly — Lucknow (438 km)

N.H. 39: Numaligarh- Imphal — Palel — Indo — Myanmar Border (436 km)

N.H. 44 : Shillong — Passi Badarpur — Agartala (495 km)

N.H. 47: Salem — Coimbatore — Trichur Ernakulam Thiruvanantha-puram - Kanyakumari (640 km)

N.H. 48: Bangalore — Hasan — Mangalore (328 km)

N.H. 49: Kochi - Madurai - Dhanushkodi (440 km)

N.H. 55: Siliguri — Darjeeling (77 km)

N.H. 80: Makamah — Farakka (310 km.)

N.H. 102: Chapra — Muzaffarpur (80 km.)

N.H. 205 : Ananthpur — Chennai (442 km.)

·         The longest National highway in India is NH-7; which has a length of 128 kms in Uttar Pradesh, 504 kms in Madhya Pradesh, 232 kms in Maharashtra, 753 kms in Andhra Pradesh, 125 kms in Karnataka, 627 kms in Tamil Nadu i.e. total 2369 kms.