The book deals with the social effort consisting of agriculture, social education, employment, health care, village industries and housing to rural people. In ancient days, the village committee helped in the functions and responsibilities of local bodies. The Madras Panchayat Act of 1958 and the Panchayat Raj System in 1959 introduced to raise the standard of living of the rural people by undertaking comprehensive measures to increase the production of food progressively from year to year and improve the living conditions. But the Panchayat Raj did not bring relief to the weaker sections of the community. The author points out that education is the most important single factor in achieving rapid development in economic as well as in technological fields. He tries to bring out the measures taken by the Government of Tamil Nadu to educate the rural masses and schemes adopted for women and child welfare. In detail the book deals with the government programmes of eradicating poverty in rural areas of Tamil Nadu. This book could be very useful in knowing the regional history and its development.