The North-south and East-west Road Corridors of India cross each other at which of the following cities ?
- (a)Bhopal
- (b)Itarsi
- (c)Gwalior
- (d)Jhansi
Correct — D, Jhansi. The North-South Corridor runs about 4,000 km from Srinagar to Kanyakumari, with a spur to Kochi. The East-West Corridor runs about 3,300 km from Silchar to Porbandar. Together they make up roughly 7,300 km of the second phase of the National Highways Development Project. On the ground the north-south leg is carried by National Highway 44 from Jammu to Kanyakumari and the east-west leg by National Highway 27 from Gujarat to Assam, and Jhansi is the town where those two highways meet — the city sits at the junction of NH 44, NH 27, NH 39 and NH 75, so highways run out of it in five directions. That is why Jhansi is nicknamed the crossroads of India.
- (a)Bhopal — Bhopal is the capital of Madhya Pradesh and a major road hub, but it lies away from both corridor alignments. Being a big and central city is not the same as standing on a national corridor.
- (b)Itarsi — Itarsi is famous as one of India's busiest railway junctions, and that fame is the whole trap. The question asks about road corridors, and a railway junction is a different network with different crossing points.
- (c)Gwalior — Gwalior does lie on the same north-south axis, a little to the north of Jhansi on NH 44. But the east-west highway does not pass through Gwalior; it meets the north-south route further south, at Jhansi. Being on one of the two corridors is not enough.
After the Golden Quadrilateral linked Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, the second phase of the National Highways Development Project added two long arms across the country. One runs the length of India from Srinagar in the north to Kanyakumari in the south, with a branch to Kochi. The other runs the breadth of it from Silchar in Assam to Porbandar in Gujarat. Their crossing point is the single most asked fact about them, because a national road grid must have one place where the spine and the crossbar meet, and locating it forces you to picture both alignments at once.
The way to reason this out without memorising is to place the two lines on a mental map. The north-south line has to pass down the middle of the country through Delhi, Agra, Gwalior and on towards Nagpur. The east-west line has to come across the Ganga plain through Gorakhpur, Lucknow and Kanpur and then swing west towards Kota and Ahmedabad. The only place both descriptions can be true at once is in the Bundelkhand corner of Uttar Pradesh, and Jhansi is the city there. One honest caveat is worth carrying — the alignments are described as passing closely by Jhansi rather than through its centre, as bypasses usually do, but Jhansi is the crossing city in every official and textbook account and the only one of the four options that lies on both routes.
- The North-South Corridor runs about 4,000 km from Srinagar to Kanyakumari, with a spur to Kochi.
- The East-West Corridor runs about 3,300 km from Silchar to Porbandar.
- Together they total roughly 7,300 km and belong to Phase II of the National Highways Development Project.
- Jhansi stands at the junction of National Highway 44 from Jammu to Kanyakumari and National Highway 27 from Gujarat to Assam, with highways diverging in five directions.
The spine from Srinagar to Kanyakumari and the crossbar from Silchar to Porbandar intersect at Jhansi, which is why the city is called the crossroads of India.
- Answering with a railway junction such as Itarsi when the question says road corridor.
- Assuming a state capital or a bigger city must be the crossing point.
- Settling for a city that lies on only one of the two corridors, such as Gwalior.
Asked as a single-fact location item — identify the one city that lies on both national road corridors.
Consider the following pairs: National Highway - Cities connected 1. NH 4 - Chennai and Hyderabad 2. NH 6 - Mumbai and Kolkata 3. NH 15 - Ahmedabad and Jodhpur Which of the above pairs is/are correctly matched?
- (a) 1 and 2 only
- (b) 3 only
- (c) 1, 2 and 3
- (d) None
Answer(d) None
The same demand — know which national highway actually runs between which places. All three printed pairs there are near misses of the true endpoints, exactly as Gwalior is a near miss of the true crossing city here.
Bharatamala Pariyojana is related to
- (a) interlinking of Northern and Southern Indian rivers in a garland shape.
- (b) networks of National Highways in India.
- (c) interlinking of all cities of India through Railways.
- (d) interlinking of all industrial regions of India through pipelines.
Answer(b) networks of National Highways in India.
The successor programme to the corridors in this question. Bharatmala is the umbrella scheme that took over national highway development after the National Highways Development Project phases, so the two items sit end to end on the same syllabus line.
Which of the following scheme(s) is/are included under Bharatmala Pariyojana? 1. Develop the road connectivity to border areas 2. Development of coastal roads 3. Improvement in the efficiency of National Corridors Select the correct answer using the code given below :
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 3 only
- (c) 2 and 3 only
- (d) 1, 2 and 3
Answer(d) 1, 2 and 3
Names the national corridors directly — improving their efficiency is one of the listed components. Knowing where the two corridors run and cross is what makes that component mean something.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The East-West Corridor of India connects
- (a)Silchar and Porbandar
- (b)Dibrugarh and Surat
- (c)Guwahati and Mumbai
- (d)Kolkata and Ahmedabad
Answer(a) Silchar and Porbandar — about 3,300 km from Assam to the Saurashtra coast of Gujarat.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The North-South and East-West Corridors were taken up under which phase of the National Highways Development Project?
- (a)Phase I
- (b)Phase II
- (c)Phase III
- (d)Phase V
Answer(b) Phase II — Phase I was the Golden Quadrilateral, and the two corridors followed it.