This chapter deals with the planning procedure of a SHP. The purpose of planning a small hydro project is to prepare a Detailed Project Report (DPR) for a techno-economically feasible proposal. It is an expensive and time-consuming exercise because it involves collection of data, surveys, field investigations, hydrological and power potential studies, structural design of structures and cost estimates, etc. Hence to arrive at a techno-economically feasible proposal planning is done in stages. These are termed as identification stage, pre-feasibility stage and feasibility or DPR stage. What activities are carried out in each of these stages of planning are briefly described in this chapter. What a DPR should contain is also described here.