A critical infrastructure that will be of immense help in tackling this year?s sharp deficiency in rainfall is the extensive length of rural roads built over the last few years. The length of rural roads constructed, mainly under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadhak Yojana (PMGSY), has steadily gone up from 15,464 km in 2004-05 to 52,404 km in 2008-09 and the number of habitation connected has gone up from 3,915 to 14,454 during the period. Overall, 1,62,700 km of new or upgraded rural roads has been added connecting 48,708 habitations over the last five years.

How can rural roads that have been built in the recent years be a big help in drought relief efforts? A World Bank study showed that rural road connectivity typically raises village income between 50-100%. That?s an income cushion for villages that didn?t exist before, when rains were patchy.

This income jump happens due to a number of factors. For one, good connectivity improves access to farm inputs such as high yielding seeds and fertilisers and improve farm yields. The income gains from this gets further maximised as the access to new markets also help farmers to shift to higher value cash crops like horticulture and also increase the intensity of cultivation. Faster transportation similarly adds to farm incomes as it helps reduce costs and minimise wastage, especially of perishable farm goods. Good roads also help farmers get rid of some or sometimes all middlemen. They can take the produce directly to the large retail markets, helping them reap even further gains.

Roads also help indirectly by increasing the farmers? resource mobilisation abilities. The most important effect in this category is the increase in farm land prices that follow road building. According to the World Bank, land prices go up by 60% to 80% on an average. This along with the greater access to organised sector credit from banks multiplies farmer?s ability to raise resources?a crucial weapon for a farmer looking to open up new revenue streams.

Basically, roads open up new opportunities to earn income from non-farm activities. The most rudimentary among them is the ability to travel to larger habitations close by and hire themselves out for higher wages. New roads, the Bank study shows, also open up new non-farm employment opportunities within habitations. The more resourceful rural households diversify and invest their resources in new activities like food processing, transport and marketing.

A study made in the Indian context during the late nineties showed that each investment of a million rupees (at constant 1993 prices) on roads helped 165 persons to cross the poverty line. At a macro level it estimated that Rs 100 billion of investments in roads would increase productivity growth by more than 3%. These are impressive numbers. And more such studies are required.

Another interesting thing about rural roads is that states that have made progress are also mostly the ones being hit by drought. The number of habitations connected through new roads or through upgrade of old roads since 2000 is healthy. New rural roads helped connect 57,274 habitats, while road up gradate helped further improve connectivity of another 68,682 habitats. Together they accounted for 13.3% of the total habitations in the rural sector.

Leading the list of the states that successfully connected the maximum number of habitations is Rajasthan (10,713), followed by Madhya Pradesh (8,169), Uttar Pradesh (7,657), West Bengal (6,037) and Chhattisgarh (5,110), almost all of them among states most severely affected by poor rains. And states that have upgraded the maximum number of roads are also those that are particularly drought-hit. They include Uttar Pradesh (13,854), Andhra Pradesh (9,933), Karnataka (8,077), Maharashtra (7,615) and Madhya Pradesh (5,864).

Further, drought-hit states are prominent not only in terms of having connected or upgraded connectivity but also in terms of the share of villages that have benefited from the programme. States that have boosted new connectivity of habitations by extending coverage to the maximum levels include Rajasthan (26.9%), Chhattisgarh (17.7%) and Madhya Pradesh.

Of course, as always in India, there is a flip side. Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal figure in the list of most improved states in terms of rural connectivity but also states that have the largest number of rural habitations that are not connected by decent or even semi-decent roads. Bihar also figures in this list. These states have historically been the worst road builders. But at least they are playing catch up now. And that?s good news for the farmer.

?p.raghavan@expressindia.com