Overview
- NHAI published the new guidelines on Monday, September 21, to give planners the country’s first uniform technical and safety standards for four‑ and six‑lane access‑controlled National Highways that are not expressways.
- The rules prescribe corridor geometry by traffic levels with 60m and 70m rights‑of‑way and specific lane/structure counts for flows up to 15,000, 15,000–25,000 and 25,000–40,000 vehicles to standardise capacity planning.
- To strengthen access control the guidelines require a one‑metre boundary wall along corridor edges, elimination of median openings and at‑grade intersections, and use of flush medians with wire ropes or crash barriers.
- Safety features include mandatory ramp interchanges at major crossings and at routes serving ports, airports and logistics hubs, plus advance exit signage at fixed distances such as 5 km, 2 km, 1 km and 500 m.
- The framework closes a regulatory gap as India plans roughly 50,000 km of access‑controlled high‑speed corridors under Viksit Bharat 2047, but articles say detailed rollout timetables, enforcement steps and project‑level adoption remain unspecified.