The National Highways Bill, passed in 1995, provides for private investment in the building and maintenance of the highways. Recently, a number of new roads have been classified as "NHs" in a move to provide national connectivity even to remote places. Bypasses have also recently been constructed around larger towns and cities to provide uninterrupted passage for highway traffic. The varied climactic, demographic, traffic, and sometimes political situation, prevents these highways from having a uniform character. They range from fully-paved, six-lane roads in some areas, to unpaved stretches in remote places. Many NH's are still being upgraded or are under construction. There are long NH's to connect the metros together, as well as short spurs off the highway to provide connectivity to nearby ports or harbors. The longest National Highway is the NH7, which runs between Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh to Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu, at the southernmost point of the Indian mainland, covering a distance of 2369 km, and passing through various metros like Jabalpur, Nagpur, Hyderabad and Bangalore. The shortest NH is the NH47A, which spans 6 km, to the Ernakulam - Kochi Port.
India has a vast network of National Highways. India's highways connect all the major cities and state capitals. Most are 2-lane highways. In some more developed areas they may broaden to 4 lanes, while close to big cities, highways can sometimes expand to 8 lanes. India has the distinction of having the world's second highest-altitude motor highway[4][5], Leh-Manali Highway, connecting Shimla to Leh in Ladakh, Kashmir.
All such national highways are paved roads. In most developed states the roads are generally free of potholes. In less-developed states and in sparsely populated areas however, highways are often riddled with potholes. Very few of India's highways are concrete, the most notable being the Mumbai-Pune Expressway.
Highways form the economic backbone of the country. Highways have often facilitated development along their routes, and many new towns have sprung up along major highways. Highways are dotted with local restaurants or inns popularly known as Dhabas. They serve popular local cuisine and also serve as truck stops.
Under former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, India launched a massive program of highway upgrades, called the National Highway Development Project (NHDP), in which the main north-south and east-west connecting corridors and highways connecting the four metropolitan cities have been fully paved and widened into 4-lane highways.
Some of the Busy National Highway sectors in India have been converted to 4 or 6 lane expressways – for example, Delhi-Agra, Delhi-Jaipur, Ahmedabad-Vadodara, Mumbai-Pune, Mumbai-Surat, Bangalore-Mysore, Bangalore-Chennai, Chennai-Tada, Hyderabad-Vijayawada and Guntur-Vijayawada. Phase V of the National Highway Development Project is to convert all 6000 km of the Golden Quadrilateral Highways to 6-lane highways/expressways by 2012.
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