Government of India launched several centrally sponsored programmes for prevention and control of diseases, namely National AIDS Control Programme in 1992 and National Programme for Control of Blindness in 1976. A review on the performance of these programmes during 1996-2001 in Punjab State revealed the following : Highlights To contain the spread of the HIV infection in India and to strengthen India’s capacity to respond to the HIV/AIDS on long term basis, the Government of India (GOI) launched a hundred per cent Centrally sponsored National AIDS Control Programme in 1992. The review of the programme revealed several deficiencies in its management and implementation. The implementation was poor in the State as 82 per cent of the available funds remained unutilized during 1996-97. The achievements under sub-components of the programme were not substantial and in most of the cases targets were not fixed. The task of identifying high-risk groups remained ineffective as against the coverage of whole State, only 4 towns were covered and only base line data was compiled. Peer counseling, treatment of STIs and client programmes were virtually absent. The training programme was not complete in all respects as no training was given to medical and para-medical staff in the field. The National programme for control of blindness, a cent per cent Centrally sponsored programme, was launched in 1976 to achieve the goal of reducing the prevalence of blindness upto 3 per thousand of population by year ending 2000. The review of the programme revealed gross deficiencies in programme implementation. The achievements fixed for cataract surgery were inflated by 30 to 45 per cent. Funds released by Government of India (GOI) to Director Health Services (DHS) and DBCSs remained unutilized. There was a lack of monitoring and evaluation of the programme at State level.