Rural road construction in India: A summary of the evidence

What are its effects on agriculture, and everything else?

Introduction 

In 2001, the Indian government launched a nationwide rural road construction program as a poverty reduction strategy. Since its launch, the program has constructed over 755,000 km of roads and is set to connect more than 167,000 villages. Consequently, there’s been a surge in research on the various impacts of these efforts. Though many of these studies focus on agricultural outcomes, there is also a growing literature on the spillover effects of this initiative.