How Does India's Rural Roads Program Affect the Grassroots? Findings from a Survey in Orissa
This paper analyzes the effects of all-weather rural roads on households' net output prices, education and health in a poor, drought-prone region of India. Of 30 villages originally surveyed in 2001-02, when two had such roads, a further nine...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2012
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2012/08/16599745/indias-rural-roads-program-affect-grassroots-findings-survey-orissa http://hdl.handle.net/10986/12012 |
| Summary: | This paper analyzes the effects of
all-weather rural roads on households' net output
prices, education and health in a poor, drought-prone region
of India. Of 30 villages originally surveyed in 2001-02,
when two had such roads, a further nine received them
between January 2007 and December 2009 under the program
Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana. Cross-section comparisons
involving all villages and 'before and after'
comparisons in the nine yielded these findings: (i) net
output prices were 5 per cent or more higher; (ii)
substantially fewer days of schooling were lost due to bad
weather, largely because teachers had fewer absences; (iii)
the acutely sick received more timely treatment and were
more likely to be treated in a hospital than in the nearest
primary health clinic; and (iv) the respondents ranked the
resulting benefits in the domains of health and education at
least as highly as the 'commercial' ones. |
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