Government released “Rating mechanism for National Highways”

What is the News?

The Ministry of Road Transport & Highways(MoRTH) released the first-ever rating mechanism for National Highways.

About the rating mechanism for National Highways:

• Conducted by: National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) under the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways(MoRTH).
• Objective: The fundamental objective of highway rating is “Minimum time with maximum safety in a stress-free environment” for the highway users. Apart from that, it will also improve the government’s accountability towards road users.
• Parameters: Each toll plaza of the highway is judged based on three major criteria. They are,
  • Highway Efficiency(45%): This will consist of an operating speed of traffic, traffic volume, delay at toll plazas among others.
  • Highway Safety(35%): This will look at accidents on the highways per year, ambulance response time, road clearance after an accident, etc.
  • User Friendly(20%): This will look at the number of footpaths, junctions, adequate structures, etc.

Note: There are no such criteria that have been developed across the world to evaluate the performance of highways from the user perspective.

How many National Highways have been covered in the rating mechanism?

• The rating has been done for all 219 national highway stretches across the country. They cover a distance of 18,668 km.
• Four corridors are selected for rating i.e. Agra-Mumbai(1,084 km), Pune-Vijayawada(856 km), Mumbai-Kolkata(1,927 km), Bangalore-Kanyakumari (655 km).

Best and worst Highway according to the rating mechanism

• The best is the 102-km stretch of the six-lane Ahmedabad-Vadodara section of National Highway (NH)-48.
• The worst stretch is the 45-km Indore-Dewas section of NH-3, which connects Agra to Mumbai.

Golden Quadrilateral:

• The Golden Quadrilateral(GQ) is a national highway network. It is connecting most of the major industrial, agricultural and cultural centres of India.
• It forms a quadrilateral connecting the four major metro cities of India, viz., Delhi (north), Kolkata (east), Mumbai (west) and Chennai (south).
• Managed by: National Highways Authority of India(NHAI) under the Ministry of Road, Transport, and Highways.
• Significance: It is the largest highway project in India and the fifth-longest in the world.

Source: PIB