Tamil Nadu rural areas. There are 29 national highways in the state, covering a total distance of . The state is also a terminus for the Golden Quadrilateral project, that connects Indian metropolises like (New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai and Kolkata). The state has a total road length of , of which are maintained by Highways Department. This is nearly 2.5 times higher than the density of all-India road network. The major road junctions are Chennai, Vellore, Madurai, Trichy, Coimbatore, Salem, Tirunelveli, Tuticorin, Karur, Krishnagiri, Dindigul and Kanniyakumari. Road transport is provided by state owned Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation and State
History of Tamil Nadu in the Indian Union, Tamil Nadu was the seventh largest economy in 2005 among the states of India. The growing demands for skilled labour has caused increased number of educational institutions in Tamil Nadu. The widespread application of caste based affirmative action caused the state to have 69% of all educational and employment vacancies to be reserved to the backward castes. Such caste-based reservations have huge public support in Tamil Nadu, with no popular protests organised against its implementation. The politics of Tamil Nadu have gone through three distinct phases since independence. The domination of the Congress Party after 1947