National Highway 44 (NH 44) is the longest highway in India. Its total length is 3,745 Km. running from Srinagar in North to Kanyakumari in the South.
NH 44 connects 11 States of the Country and about 30 important cities with each other. NH 44 is constructed and is maintained by the Central Public Works Department (CPWD). The National Highway came into existence after merging fully or partially with previously constructed seven Highways. The seven Highways are, NH 1A connects from Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir, NH 1 which starts from Punjab and Haryana, and ends at Delhi, then connected with parts of NH 2 which starts from Delhi and end at Agra, after this, NH 3 which starts from Agra and end at Gwalior, former NH 75 and former NH 26 to Jhansi, and lastly connects to NH 7 through Nagpur, and Adilabad, Nirmal, Kamareddy, Hyderabad, Kurnool, Mahbubnagar, Anantapur, Bengaluru, Dharmapuri, Salem, Karur, Madurai, Kovilpatti, and Tirunelveli, and finally NH 44 ends at Kanyakumari.
The 11 Indian States connected through National Highway 44 are Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu.
The major infrastructural addition of National Highway 44 is ‘Chenani-Nashri Tunnel’. The tunnel was inaugurated by Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, on April 2, 2017. It is the most significant addition to this highway. A part of about 82 Km. of NH 44 between Bengaluru and Krishnagiri is selected as the part of ‘Golden Quadrilateral’ and was headed under National Highways Development Project.
