National highways to get new numbers

The existing numbering system of national highways is about to change soon.

The Union Ministry of Road Transport and National Highways has proposed a new mechanism to make the numbering system of highways more scientific and easy to remember.

As per a report prepared by the ministry, highways from north to south will have even numbers and those running in the east-west direction will get odd numbers.

For example, the North-South Corridor starting from Srinagar and terminating in Kanyakumari will be named NH 44 and East-West Corridor starting from Silchar in Assam and terminating in Porbandar in Gujarat will be NH-27.

The primary national highways running along north-south and east-west directions will get double digit numbers.

The numbering system will be in the ascending order –– for north-south highways beginning in the north and for east-west highways beginning in the east, the report said.

The number of secondary routes will have three digits-above 100. However, there will be no separate number for Golden Quadrilateral or National Expressways, or various corridor highways. Now, the 80,000 km-long national highways are numbered as NH-1 to NH-235 and some have suffixes such as A, B,  C, etc.  The current system has led to confusion in several places as roads run parallel to each other, a senior official from the ministry told Deccan Herald.