Peoples' participation is both a goal and a con- dition for the successful operation of both a local government system and rural development programme. In this perspective an attempt will be made here in this paper to examine the local government systems and rural development programmes that have been practised in Bangladesh.
The local government system has an age old traditon in our country whose origin can be traced in the introduction of Chawkidary Panchayat Act in 1873. The Act divided the countryside into unions' comprising about ten or twelve square miles each and they would embrace a number of villages within their fold. Each of these unions was placed under a commitee known as Panchayat committee consisting of five members. The commitee was made responsible to maintain peace in the locality and was, empowered to collect taxes to raise fund for the payment to the village police or Chowkidar. It would, perhaps, not be out of place to recall here that the British administration