New numbers for national highways in North East India

The next time you travel from Cooch Behar in West Bengal to Guwahati via North Salmara, Nalbari and Baihata Chariali through National Highway-31, make sure you are taking the right stretch. Again, if you refer to the 680-km road from Goalpara to Guwahati to Saikhowaghat in Tinsukia district as NH-37, you could be wrong again.

For, NH-31 is now the road from Raebareli in Uttar Pradesh to Katihar in Bihar, while NH-37 is the highway from Imphal in Manipur to the India-Bangladesh border at Karimganj in the state. The ministry of road transport and highways has re-numbered national highways in the country according to their direction and location and hence the change. The 3,300-km East-West corridor, linking Silchar in the east with Porbandar in Gujarat in the west, will be NH-27 and the second longest national highway in the country. The North-South corridor, linking Srinagar with Kanyakumari is 4,000 km and has been re-numbered NH-44.

According to the ministry of road transport and highways, the present length of NHs in the country is about 66,754 km and are numbered from 1 to 228, with some having suffixes such as A, B etc. "The existing national highways do not give any indication of their location and direction. Therefore, the ministry has adopted a systematic numbering of national highways. It will indicate the direction of national highways," the ministry said.

All the national highways in the state have been re-numbered along with the rest of the country, replacing almost half-a-century of old numbers. The gazette notification was issued by the Centre on March 5, 2010. The ministry of road transport and highways has informed all state PWDs about the changes. However, only Manipur and Nagaland governments have notified the changes. State PWD secretary, J N Sharma, told TOI, "We have not yet notified the changes. We are still following the old numbers."

According to the rationalized numbering, the national highways from the East to West have odd numbers while those from the North to South are even numbered. The new NH-2 is the highway from Dibrugarh to Sibsagar and Amguri to Mokochong, Wokha and Kohima in Nagaland to Imphal, Churachandpur in Manipur to Seling, Serchhip and Tuipang in Mizoram.

National Highway-6 is now the stretch from Jorabat near the city to Shillong, Kanpui, Aizwal in Mizoram, terminating at Seling in Mizoram, while NH-15 starts from Baihata Chariali to Mangaldoi, North Lakhimpur via Tezpur and then Brahmaputra to Dibrugarh through the under-construction Bogibeel bridge right up to Doomdooma.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/guwahati/New-numbers-for-national-highways/articleshow/10438355.cms