It has been accepted by all that the goals of economic planning cannot be achieved unless the people actively involve themselves in the participation, implementation and follow-up of the developmental plans and programmes. Through the importance of public participation in planning has been accepted right from the First Five Year Plan, the spirit of participation has not been realized. Whatever planning we have attempted has low rate of success due to lack of people’s participation. In fact people’s participation forms the central idea of democracy. In order to maximize people’s participation the Government has taken a right step in 1992 by introducing 73rd Amendment of the “Indian constitution”. A part from strengthening the Panchyat Raj System the Amendment aims at reducing the political and bureaucratic interference in the rural development. In this paper we intend to explore the importance of people’s participation in planning; take a stock of some experiments in this regard in Ahmednagar District and suggest alternative strategy to make people’s participation more effective.