Deputy premier John Barilaro has completed a tour of western NSW to hand out millions of dollars in state funding aimed at sparking economic activity in towns and cities that are doing it tough because of the ongoing drought.

He joined Bathurst MP Paul Toole in Kelso on Sunday morning to announce a $4.9 million handout to Bathurst Regional Council towards developing a new five hectare precinct at the Kelso Industrial Park which is expected to support up to an additional 79 jobs in Bathurst when completed. Council will also contribute $920,000 to the project.

The Kelso grant is part of the government's $170 million drought stimulus package that recognises that the impacts of drought on a local economy stretch much further than simply halting farm spending, but it's a short-term boost that can be only part of the solution.

Two severe droughts in 15 years have shown the need for real drought-proofing across the state and the fear is that short-term stimulus programs might come at the expense of long-term answers.

Rather than handing out dozens of [relatively] small $5 million sugar rush grants, there must be an argument that the government would do better to concentrate on just a few key $100-$200 million projects.

In Bathurst alone we need to investigate a pipeline from Ben Chifley Dam and again raising the dam wall, but they are massive projects that require enormous amounts of planning and enormous amounts of money.

But with the state government's coffers still swollen by the Snowy Hydro and poles and wires money, now is the time for those projects to take precedence.

This government has found billions to upgrade the Sydney roads network and regional NSW deserves the same long-term infrastructure spending.

It's not enough to spend billions in Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong while trying to placate the bush with just a few million here and there. So while we welcome the funding announced on Sunday, we hope there is more - much more - to come.

It's one thing to stimulate the economy during a drought, it's another - much more expensive - thing to drought-proof a community into the future.

That's the test for the state government, and that's how it will be judged.