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Synopsis Rural development is an old theme but has been evolving new contents and fresh concerns, and the village still remains a homogeneous entity. Rural development in its comprehensive sense relate to multidimensional development of rural areas. The philosophy of rural development as a strategy has been to enable a target group of rural people to identity their needs and also to evolve a process to ensure the continuing benefits of rural development to the poorest among the poor. First part of the book presents a comprehensive picture of the rural development programmes in chronological order since first five year plan to the eighth five year plan. Here attempt has also been made to present the temporal dimensions of policies and objectives being adopted, extended and/or modified after reviewing the needs of identified target area and/or target groups. Second part attempts to analyse the trend of rural development programmes being implemented in the region with their changing philosophy and composition from Community Development Programme (CDP), Small Farmers Development Agencies (SFDA) to Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP). This part of the book encompasses the block level analysis of rural development programmes being implemented and attempts to understand the block-wise and programme-wise proportion of beneficiaries. First half of the third part of the study has been so designed to have the first hand information on the basis of village and household questionnaires especially developed for the purpose, not only have helped in evaluating the impact of various rural development programmes but also in assessing the participation of beneficiaries and that of the implementing agencies. The degree of awareness, attitude and opinion of the respondents, evaluation of rural development programmes and role of government functionaries too has been included in the second half. Finally on the basis of the findings of the study, based on field observations and theoretical knowledge some important and practical suggestions have been made to improve the effectiveness of rural development programmes and also to ensure the active participation of rural people. The study indeed is of immense use to the geographers, economists, sociologists, administrators along with researchers working in the fields.