This paper tried to study the impact of remittances on various macroeconomic and developmental aspects for the Indian economy. For this, the data regarding remittances and some of the macroeconomic variables like GDP, PFCE, GDFC, savings, FDI, FII, export, import and balance of trade deficit etc have been analyzed for the period 1971-2008. The study shows that remittances have been consistently increasing at very fast rate for the last 15 years which have significant implications on the above mentioned macroeconomic variables. Through this study, the importance of remittances as a source of external development finance has been discussed. At last, some of the regulatory frameworks governing the flow of remittances have also been discussed.