The Central Government has issued a series of notifications restructuring the management, development and maintenance of several National Highway stretches in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, entrusting key routes to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and assigning strategically important border roads in Himachal Pradesh to the Border Roads Organisation (BRO).Gazette notifications issued by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways state that the Centre has entrusted the entire New National Highway-154A — running from its junction with NH-154 near Chakki in Punjab through Banikhet and Chamba to Bharmour in Himachal Pradesh — to the NHAI.The government has also entrusted the entire Himachal Pradesh stretch of New NH-7 to the NHAI, extending from the Haryana-Himachal Pradesh border near Kala Amb to Paonta Sahib and onward to the Himachal Pradesh-Uttarakhand border.In addition, the 166-km Shimla bypass-Theog-Narkanda-Suru section of New NH-5 has also been placed under the authority.In separate notifications, the Centre directed the Border Roads Organisation, functioning under the Border Roads Development Board, to undertake the development and maintenance of the 157-km Suru-Powari-Chini-Shipki La (India-Tibet border) section of New NH-5 in Himachal Pradesh.The BRO has also been assigned the entire New NH-505A, connecting Powari, Reckong Peo and Kalpa in Himachal Pradesh.The ministry has simultaneously amended earlier notifications to redefine the execution of works on several National Highways in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, assigning specified stretches to the respective state governments under the National Highways Act, 1956.These include portions of NH-3, NH-105, NH-303, NH-305, NH-503A, NH-705, NH-707 and NH-907A in Himachal Pradesh, and stretches of NH-3, NH-7, NH-148B, NH-154, NH-254, NH-354, NH-354E, NH-503 Extension, NH-703, NH-703A, NH-703B, NH-703AA and NH-754 in Punjab.The Centre has omitted from an earlier NHAI notification the 97-km to 103.4-km Paonta Sahib-Himachal Pradesh/Uttarakhand border section of New NH-7 in Himachal Pradesh.