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.