Any discussion around India's Social Policy, Social Welfare and Social Development ought to be laid in the context of India's sixty years of planning history. In this critical essay, I explore the views and treatise of octogenarian Shankar Pathak on social welfare policies and development of the poor in India. In those sixty years of planning, India has certainly made strides, such as producing some billionaires that enter into who's who list compiled by Forbes, alongside its poor making world's record officially included into the top ten poor nations. India's situation can be aptly captured and surmised by borrowing the famous saying of American Political Economist "doing better but feeling worse" ( Wildavsky, 1977, pp105), this paper exam...