The Tamilnadu Catholic Church's involvement in the field of social development is noteworthy.

Earlier, the Church was doing a lot of charity and welfare works which were carried out mostly by priests and sisters with financial support from within and outside the country. These were however, not quite well planned and organised. Later in the sixties, these works were considered as one of Church's specific areas of concern. A lot of activities were taken up, with special emphasis on Food Aid Programmes, with the support of Catholic Relief Services - USCC. It was during this period the Dioceses realised the need to establish a separate organisation to co-ordinate the various activities of the church

in its social ministry. The Diocesan Social Service Societies (DSSS) were formed and registered. Nine DSSS were established in the sixties, five in the seventies and four in the eighties.

These societies slowly moved from the charity oriented activities to welfare oriented and later to economic-benefit and skills oriented programmes. Some of these changes were the result of serious reflection and evaluation on the part of the DSSS of their involvement in the lives of people. All the activities of the DSSSs were well planned and systematically implemented. New structures were introduced. Here again, financial support had been mostly from partners abroad. But efforts were made to mobilize local resources especially from the Government and Banks.

In the late seventies and particularly in the eighties, the DSSSs had launched Social Transformation programmes or People's organization programmes, which attempted to create critical consciousness in people and helped people, build up People's organizations leading to a people's movement. One finds here, that these groups were not only involved at the micro level but had moved to the semi-macro and macro levels and are able to mobilize local funds, by themselves, from governments, banks etc., so that their dependence on DSSSs becomes drastically decreased.