PMGSY was rolled out in 2000 to provide access to all-weather roads in 1.78 lakh rural habitations across the country.
New Delhi: A recent independent World Bank assessment of the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) rural roads programme meant to establish ‘farm to market connectivity’ shows that the PMGSY roads, in fact, “triggered a shift from farm to non-farm employment” in the habitations studied between 2009 and 2017 as with roads in place, people chose employment opportunities outside their habitations over expanding their farming.
“As a consequence of PMGSY roads, the rate of primary employment in the non-farm sector increased by about 12 percentage points in the habitations studied. This increase represents a 33 per cent increase over the average share of non-farm primary employment in 2009 in habitations that were connected after 2009,” it said.
The study also shows it is the men that switch to non-farm employment while women step in to take care of the farms. The entry of women into the workforce, the report notes, is the main reason for the 5.5 per cent increase in employment in connected habitations. Moreover, the shift to non-farm employment was found to be more pronounced in hilly areas.
PMGSY was rolled out in 2000 to provide access to all-weather roads in 1.78 lakh rural habitations across the country. The study states that by December 2017, 1.59 lakh habitations were connected at a cost of $ 27 billion with some of the financing also coming from the World Bank. The World Bank impact evaluation of PMGSY applies panel data and difference-in-difference methodology for 2009 and 2017 household and habitation level data from Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
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