Nairobi — Nobody would deny the role of telecommunications in development. In fact, one of the measures of backwardness of a country is the paucity or inefficiency of its telephone network. Using that criterion, Kenya is among the least endowed countries in the world.

It is estimated that in Kenya, there are less than five telephone lines for every 1,000 people, while countries like South Africa, Egypt and Libya boast at least 10 lines for the same number of people.

This means that before the introduction of the cellphone, we in Kenya were in the Dark Age of telecommunications, and since most lines were concentrated in urban or peri-urban areas where the minority of Kenyans live, the great majority had no access to the telephone.

They still don't. In an age of instant communication, our people are still light years behind and there is no likelihood the sorry situation will change for the better any time soon. For one thing, only a few can afford a cellphone and even if those in rural areas did buy sets and had access to scratch cards, electricity is hard to come by.

So the announcement that the Government will spend more than Sh14.4 billion in the next five years to extend telephone services to rural areas is most welcome.

There are two reasons why this development would be a great blessing. Not only will it open up rural areas because many town-dwellers will want to go back to their rural villages, build and settle there, it will also enable rural folks to communicate easily with their relatives in town with obvious social and economic advantages.

Of course the assumption is that the high cost of telephone line extension will progressively fall. This will allow those who can afford it to extend the lines to their houses, something that worked well with the Rural Electrification Scheme in which even mud-walled huts were, incongruously, very well-lit.

This is a visionary idea which is bound to revolutionise rural life and the country's all-round development.