During the period 1990 to 2010, India's economic growth rate had more than doubled from 1.9 percent during 1961-1990 to 4.6 percent in 1991-2008. Those employed in agriculture and living in rural areas had not benefited from the increased growth in the rest of the economy because of weaknesses in basic rural infrastructure; in particular, the poor condition of most parts of the existing rural road network limited socio-economic development. To address the gap in rural connectivity, the Government of India (GoI) launched the flagship Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) Program on December 25, 2000, to provide all-weather road access to all habitations with a population greater than 1,000. By 2010, the length of the new and improved rural road network under the program had reached 274,000 km and as a result 70,500 habitations had been connected.