which is the longest national road in india
National Highway 44 (India) National Highway 44 (NH 44) is the longest-running major northâ€“south National Highway in India. It starts from Srinagar and terminates in Kanyakumari; the highway passes through the states of Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu.[1] NH-44 was laid and is maintained by Central Public Works Department (CPWD).
Grand Trunk Road Research indicates that the Grand Trunk road predated even Buddha's birth and was called Uttara Path, meaning, road to the North. Salman Rashid attributes the Road's construction to Chandragupta Maurya.[9] During the time of the Maurya Empire in the 3rd century BCE, overland trade between India and several parts of Western Asia and the Hellenistic world went through the cities of the north-west, primarily Takshashila (in present-day in Pakistan). Takshashila was well connected by roads with other parts of the Maurya empire. The Mauryas had maintained this very ancient highway from Takshashila to Pataliputra (present-day Patna in India). Chandragupta Maurya had a whole army of officials overseeing the maintenance of this road as told by the Greek diplomat Megasthenes who spent fifteen years at the Mauryan court. Constructed in eight stages, this road is said to have connected the cities of Purushapura, Takshashila, Hastinapura, Kanyakubja, Prayag, Pataliputra and Tamralipta, a distance of around 2600 kilometers.[6]