Synopsis There has always been an on-going debate on the necessity or otherwise of the State Sector as an entrepreneur and as a welfare provisioning agency responsible for ensuring adequate availability and equitable distribution of basic social-public goods, services and utilities, of housing and shelter, of general and technical education, or primary and specialized healthcare, of sanitation and hygiene, of roads and transport of safe drinking water, of irrigation, of power, and the like, all of which go as crucial inputs into defining, variously, the general living conditions, physical quality of life, human development, as similar other indicators and indexes of development as perceived under the new paradigm. The winning view in this debate has been the one favouring the need for curtailing the State/Public Sector’s role and replacing it by the liberalized Market-Governed regime as a necessary precondition for development as now perceived, especially in the Third World countries. This alternative is being prescribed and peddled, and accepted too, as a panacea for all their socio-economic maladies. This book bring together contributions of eminent thinkers, scholars and practitioners from all over the country, who have, through their analytical deliberation, amply and ably elaborated upon the various sub-scenarios and facets of India’s elaborated upon the various sub-scenarios and facets of India’s experience in the pre and post-reform period and generated an evaluative profile and perspective which, expectedly, would be helpful and useful for domains of concern pertaining to reform, rural development, social and human development.