Question

The total length of national highways in Karnataka is ______________.
a. 4000 kms
b. 4220 kms
c. 4491 kms
d. 4568 kms

Answer 1

Hint: National Highway 44 (NH 44) was previously known as National Highway 7 and is the longest-running National Highway in India. It has a length of 3,745 km and spans the North-South NHDP Corridor. It begins in the north at Srinagar and ends in the south at Kanyakumari.

Complete answer:
- In India, the National Highways are a trunk road network operated by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.
- It is developed and operated by state governments' National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), National Highway and Infrastructure Development Corporation (NHIDCL), and Public Works Departments (PWD).
- The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) is the nodal agency responsible for the construction, upgrading, and maintenance of most of the National Highway network.
- It functions under the Ministry of Highways and Road Transport.
- A significant initiative to extend and improve the highway network is the National Highways Development Project (NHDP). For highway growth, maintenance, and toll-collection, NHAI also uses a public-private partnership model.
- As of April 2019, India has 142,126 km (88,313 mi) of national highways. As of 2013, national highways makeup 2.7 percent of India's total road network, but accounted for about 40 percent of road traffic. The government promised in 2016 to double the length of the highway from 96,000 to 200,000 km.
- Karnataka has a good network of roads. With a total length of 28,311 km, there are 14 national highways and 115 state highways. The total length of Karnataka's national highways is 4,491 kilometres.

Hence, the correct answer is option C.

Note:
How Indian highways are numbered -
- It is a standardised method of numbering based on the highway's orientation and geographic location. This was introduced to ensure that the numbering of current and proposed national highways is more flexible and consistent.
- Odd numbers are reserved for all the highways from East to West. The highways are numbered in ascending numbers from East to West in this case. In other words, lower numbers for high latitudes and higher numbers for lower latitudes are allocated. NH-8 is located in J&K, for example, and NH-87 is located in Tamil Nadu.