Abul Khayer, 46, seems happy after a day of hard work and looking forward to a warm meal and rest at home in Vitchar village, Kaliganj. Khayer is also glad for the road that makes it possible to cover the 5 kilometres from the fields to Vitchar in a jiffy.

"Previously, it was so difficult to shuttle this five kilometres with crops and heavy ploughs! It also would cost me up to Tk 15 to take a single maund of harvest to the market. Now, once the road is complete, the cost would come down to no more than Tk 5," Khayer says.

He describes how cumbersome it was to travel along a muddy road during the rains. So, he prays for the road builders. "They are fulfilling something that we have dreamt for long."

The road, which connects the two rural 'growth centres', Narkelbaria and Kaliganj, with the highway linking Jhenidah, Jessore and the capital, is set to make all the locals as happy as Khayer. They now hope to market their produce directly to the capital and earn much more than the past.

Construction of the Local Government and Engineering Department (LGED)-supervised road started last June and is scheduled to be completed by next September.

In fact, millions of farmers in the 16 districts of greater Kushtia, Jessore, Khulna, Patuakhali and Barisal are now expecting good days ahead while the construction of link- and feeder-roads goes on in the areas. Nearly 1,060km of upazila roads and 50km of union roads with 5.05km of bridges and culverts are being built in the areas under the Rural Infrastructure Improvement Project (Riip).

Launched in July 2003 the Riip aims to develop 68 rural growth centres, build 100 new union council complexes, set up 55 river wharves, introduce ferry service at five points as well as provide capacity building training. The $170 million project is scheduled to be completed by June 2009.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has promised 51 percent of the project cost while Kreditanstalt for Wiederaufbau (KfW) and German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) will contribute 18 percent and the government the rest, 31 percent.

Eighty-percent fund of the Riip will be used for the civil works in the 16 beneficiary districts and the rest, 20 percent, for capacity building of 32 union councils.

"The project will open up new economic vistas for the rural poor, and reduce transportation and marketing costs to a high extent," says Abdus Sahid, the project director.

GTZ Country Director Michael Nienhaus says, "The project area has been chosen on the basis of poverty and low level of development, as almost half of the 22.6 million people of this area live in abject poverty."

How the emerging infrastructure is already helping farmers get better markets for their products is demonstrated by Sohel Islam, 18, a vegetable farmer of Kefayetnagar, who carries eggplants just plucked from the fields on his bicycle to Haibutpur Bazaar nearly 5km away.

In the past, Sohel had to travel more than 15km to reach any of the growth centres. "We are now waiting for the completion of the road which would be a blessing to us," said the youth in enthusiasm.

"These roads I believe will take local vegetables not only to city markets but also to Europe, said Hermann Nicolai, charge d' affairs of the German Embassy in Dhaka.