Methodology for Assessing Social Impacts of Road Development in Rural Areas

The World Bank, New Delhi financed this project. This was in order to develop the methodology to assess and quantify the social benefits accruing to the rural economy with the introduction of village roads. While the methodology was well developed and used for assessing economic benefits, it proved to be inadequate in justifying projects in very remote and mountaneours, tribal areas. The study was undertaken by studying the impact in 121 villages of 4 blocks in Maharashtra and Gujarat. This involved detailed interviews of 2,420 families and collection of family profiles for 13,632 families. This was supplemented with secondary data collected from various sources like village panchayats, taluka panchayats. Based on this, an outline of a methodology for assessing these socio-economic benefits accruing due to rural roads was designed. The findings of the study, which have very wide implications, will be published shortly.