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Synopsis Keeping into consideration the unsatisfactory progress that has been achieved in improving socio-economic status and empowerment of women in the past, it has increasingly been felt desirable to maximise the partnership of women with the Panchayati Raj Institutions and its various activities, including the matters related to decision making process and the implementation of different rural development programme and welfare scheme. With this objective the 73 Amendment Act of the Constitution proposed that not less than one third of the total seats in all three tiers of Panchayats to be reserved for women. In this light the present study has attempted to examine various issues related to the implementation pattern of reservation policy and its awareness among rural women, socio-economic and political background and personal characteristics of women elected to PRI’s and their participation in different stages of the implementation of development programmes and welfare activities and the extent of improvements that have occurred in their mobility, freedom, socio-economic status and empowerment after representing the Panchayats. This book should prove useful for those interested in gender issues, planners and policy makers and NGOs.