NH 83
Coimbatore–Nagapattinam Highway
413 km
Open
Tamil Nadu
National Highway
Route
NH 83 runs 413 km from Madukkarai, Tamil Nadu to Nagapattinam, Tamil Nadu.
Crosses Tamil Nadu.
Through Madukkarai, Coimbatore, Udumalaipettai, Oddanchatram, Dindigul, Viralimalai, Tiruchirappalli, Thanjavur and Nagapattinam.
Why it matters
This is the main east–west road across southern Tamil Nadu, tying the industrial west to the delta and the coast, and it links a string of the state's most important temple towns.
History
National Highway 83 runs from Madukkarai near Coimbatore through Pollachi, Palani and Dindigul, then east through Tiruchirappalli and Thanjavur to the coast at Nagapattinam. It is a road through the temple country of Tamil Nadu — Palani, Srirangam at Trichy, the Brihadeeswarar temple at Thanjavur — and through the rice fields of the Cauvery delta. The old NH 83 was the Patna–Dobhi road in Bihar; this number was reassigned in the 2010 renumbering.
Good to know
- Passes Palani, one of the six abodes of Lord Murugan and a major pilgrimage site.
- Runs through Thanjavur, where the Brihadeeswarar temple is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- Crosses the Cauvery delta, the rice bowl of Tamil Nadu.
- Ends at Nagapattinam, an old port town on the Bay of Bengal.
- The old NH 83 was the Patna–Gaya–Dobhi road in Bihar — a different route entirely.
On the road
Very heavy pilgrim traffic around Palani during Thaipusam and Panguni Uthiram. The delta section floods in the north-east monsoon between October and December.
More details
- Lanes
- 2–4 lanes