Kerala stands out as the only State in India to use Five Year Plans and Annual Plans as instruments to structure the people’s aspirations into schemes and programmes, and invest the scarce resources of the economy to productive and socially impactful purposes. The planned development process got a tremendous boost when Kerala resolved to launch the ‘People’s Plan Campaign’ for decentralized planning on August 17, 1996, for the first batch of elected local governments consequent to the enactment of the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments. Through the people’s plan campaign,, Kerala developed a participatory process of development planning at the grassroots level. This process, which actively involves the community, ensures that the priorities of the people are democratically assessed and then translated into projects. These projects are implemented and monitored at the local level. The process involves ideation at the grama sabha or ward sabha (in the case of ULBs) level, functioning of working groups for each sector with elected representatives, government officials and community stakeholders as members, Planning committees for coordination of overall plan formulation at the LSG level, Development seminars bringing together various community and professional stakeholder groups, official and political representatives, final endorsement by the grama/ward sabhas and approval by the LSG councils. The plan and projects are entered electronically and sent to the DPC for approval of the overall plan, the validation of compliance to plan guidelines and arrangements for technical assessment and approval of specific projects for which a dispensation special to decentralised planning has been institutionalised.