"Five decades of planned development have clearly brought to the fore that for holistic development emphasis should be laid on social as well as economic development. The mismatch in the growth rates between the two sectors has led to lopsided development. While the growth in the economic sector is faster and its impact becomes conspicuous even in the short run, the growth rate in the social sector is painfully slow. However, once the social development sets in, it provides sustenance to the overall development process. Hence, efforts all over the world are being made for sustainable social sector development. In our country, a host of social sector development programmes have been launched from time to time, targeting the marginalized and disadvantaged sections of the society. The book, which analyzes the execution of social sector programmes in two districts of Uttar Pradesh, shows that most of these programmes, by and large, have not performed well on account of the inadequate involvement of programme functionaries and their lack of experience and training. The authors, therefore, suggest that the functioning of the panchayats needs to be improved qualitatively with the help from professional organizations."