Contents: Foreword. Preface. 1. Introduction and Overview/Niti Mehta and Anita Arya. I. Issues in Agriculture Sector: 2. Levels of Agricultural Development in India and policies for Regionally Inclusive Agricultural Growth/Ajit Kumar Singh.3. Climate Change and Food Production: A Case of Four North Indian States/Surender Singh and Sonu Madan. 4. Performance of Agriculture in Tamil Nadu and India: A Macro Perspective with Focus on the Role of Irrigation/K. Sivasubramaniyan. 5. Rural Credit and Financial Penetration by Farmers: A Zone-wise Analysis of Bihar/Ghanshyam Kumar Pandey. 6. Determinants of Adoption of Soil Nutrient Management Technology by Paddy Farmers in Karnataka/Elumalai Kannan. 7. Prospects and Constraints in Implementation of Soil Health Card Programme in Gujarat/Mrutyunjay Swain, S.S. Kalamkar and Kalpana Kapadia. 8. Analysis of Trends and Factors in Mango Exports from India, 1985-2014/Kavita Baliyan. II. Industrial Development, Employment and Entrepreneurship: 9. Inter-State Variations in Industrial Investment in India: Role of Markets, Policies and Institutions/Pulak Mishra and Saswat Kishore Mishra. 10. Growth and Regional Imbalances in MSMEs in India/Shiddalingaswami V. Hanagodimath. 11. Use of Contract Labour in India’s Organised Manufacturing: Role of Import Competition and Labour Regulations/Bishwanath Goldar. 12. Sectoral Inequality and Gender Segregation in India’s Informal Sector Employment/Jayanta Sen. III. Issues in Sustainable Urbanisation: 13. Urbanisation, Size Class of Cities and Towns and Access to Basic Amenities in India/R.B. Bhagat, Sunil Sarode, L.K. Dwivedi and Mausam Kumar. 14. Urbanisation Challenges in Gujarat: Implications for Policy and Development/Niti Mehta. IV. Governance Structure and Development Outcomes: 15. Drinking Water and Sanitation in the Slums of Gujarat/Shrawan Kumar Acharya and Atanu Chatterjee. 16. Conversion from Intermittent to Continuous Water Supply (24X7) in Hubli-Dharwad Twin Cities: Discourse on Governance and Sustenance Issues/Nayanatara S. Nayak, Narayan Billava, Ayse ercumen, Emily Kumpel, Kara Nelson and Zachary Burt. 17. India’s Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana: Enhancing Policy and Organisational Capacities for Better Outcomes/Dayashankar Maurya and Mukul Asher. 18. Impact of National Rural Health Mission on Maternal and Child Health Services in Uttar Pradesh/C.S. Verma and Shivani Singh. 19. Decentralised Governance: An Assessment of Tribal Sub-Plan (TSP) and Forest Rights Act (2006 ) in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana States/M. Gopinath Reddy. What should be the contours of public policy for crucial sectors in the Indian context? The real debate today is about finding the right balance between market forces and government for Pareto efficiency. Stiglitz posited “that government could potentially almost always improve upon the market’s resource allocation.” In reality, besides the institutional inertia, fragmented design and action often impedes execution of rational policy. The lack of non-governmental inputs, absence of debate and systematic analysis prior to policy making results in ineffective policy formulation and action, obstructing the process of economic development. The study of public policy in commodity production (agriculture, industry), as well as tertiary sectors (services, trade and transport) is important to arrive at efficient and people friendly governance structures. The collection of papers in the present volume, attempt at the development of an analytical framework for the formulation of development policy, bearing on crucial segments of the economy and society mainly, agriculture sector, industrial development, employment and entrepreneurship, urbanisation, weaker sections, and governance issues. Nineteen chapters comprising the volume are organised under four sections: Section 1 Issues in Agriculture Sector; Section 2 Industrial Development, Employment and Entrepreneurship; Section 3 Issues in Sustainable Urbanisation; Section 4 Governance Structure and Development Outcomes. The papers appearing in the volume were presented at a seminar funded by the Indian Council of Social Science Research.