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Synopsis The basic objective of our development planning has been growth with social justice. Accordingly, the government has set itself to the goal of reduction in the incidence of poverty and its ultimate eradication within a time-frame. Since the policy did not achieve its goal of eradication of poverty, the new strategy, which sought to directly attack poverty by means of specific programmes meant for certain sections of the society has since been described as the target-group approach to development. However, to a great extent, the target group approach has also failed to achieve the target. If one looks into its reasons, one thing becomes quite clear – that perhaps partial success on development front was due to non-involvement of Gram Panchayats in such programmes. Wherever Gram Panchayats had been involved, the story had been entirely different. In this context, the present volume analyses empirically as to how the involvement of Gram Panchayats plays in effective role in eradication of poverty from rural India. With the help of several tools of empirical study, the study finds out certain bottlenecks which come in the way of effective implementation of poverty alleviation programmes and finally, based on surveys, it gives certain recommendations which may prove quite helpful in eradicating poverty from the countryside. A useful book, recommended for policy planners, implementing agencies and researchers engaged in the field of rural development.