BPSC 71st CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 68 of 150

Correct — D, To enable people to participate in development administration. Panchayati Raj was invented to fix one specific administrative failure, and knowing that failure settles the question. The Community Development Programme launched on 2 October 1952 and the National Extension Service that followed on 2 October 1953 were independent India's first mass rural-development efforts, and both were run downwards through officials. In January 1957 the Government of India appointed a study team of the Committee on Plan Projects under Balwantrai G. Mehta to find out why they were not delivering. Its report, submitted in November 1957, diagnosed the problem as an absence of popular participation: there was no elected institution at village, block or district level through which villagers could own the development work being done in their name, so the programmes remained the officials' business and never became the people's. Its remedy was what it called democratic decentralisation — a three-tier structure of a directly elected Gram Panchayat at the village, a Panchayat Samiti at the block and a Zila Parishad at the district, to which development administration itself would be handed over. The National Development Council accepted the recommendations in January 1958, and Jawaharlal Nehru inaugurated the first Panchayati Raj system at Nagaur in Rajasthan on 2 October 1959, with Andhra Pradesh following on 1 November 1959. Option (d) is therefore not a description of an effect; it is the founding brief, in almost the founding words. The Constitution says the same thing twice over. Article 40, a Directive Principle, requires the State to organise village panchayats and to endow them with such powers and authority as may be necessary to enable them to function as units of self-government. Article 243G, inserted by the 73rd Amendment in 1992, lets the Legislature of a State endow Panchayats with the powers needed to function as institutions of self-government, expressly including 'the preparation of plans for economic development and social justice' and 'the implementation of schemes for economic development and social justice', with the 29 subjects of the Eleventh Schedule as the field of operation. Preparing and executing development plans is development administration, and the Constitution places it in the hands of an elected village body. The Commission's own disposal of objections put it in the same terms — the main purpose of Panchayati Raj is to enable people to participate in development administration; it is local self-government, and its decisions are taken on the basis of consensus.

• (a)To increase agriculture production — This was the target of a different set of instruments — the Community Development Programme, the Intensive Agricultural District Programme begun in 1960-61 and the Green Revolution package of high-yielding varieties. Agriculture is indeed the first entry in the Eleventh Schedule and Panchayats work on it, but it is one of 29 devolved subjects, not the reason the institution exists. A body created only to raise output would not need elections.
• (b)To increase employment — Employment generation is the object of programmes routed through Panchayats, not of Panchayats themselves — the National Rural Employment Programme of 1980, the Jawahar Rozgar Yojana of 1989 and MGNREGA in 2005, under which the Gram Sabha recommends the works and Gram Panchayats execute a major share of them. Confusing the delivery channel with the purpose of the channel is the error here; the same Panchayat also runs water supply, sanitation and primary education.
• (c)To increase people's political awareness — The most intelligent wrong answer, because it is genuinely true as a consequence — the Ashok Mehta Committee of 1978 went so far as to argue that Panchayati Raj is a political institution and that its politicisation was inevitable and even desirable. But a consequence is not the purpose. UPSC settled this distinction in 2015 by marking people's participation in development and democratic decentralisation as the fundamental objects of Panchayati Raj while excluding political accountability, and BPSC's own remark points the same way, to local self-government and decisions by consensus.

Two ideas sit underneath every Panchayati Raj question, and they are not the same idea. Democratic decentralisation is about where authority is located: power to decide is pushed down to bodies that the affected people themselves elect, rather than being exercised on their behalf from the district collectorate or the State secretariat. Development administration is about what that authority is used for: the planning, financing and execution of schemes that change material conditions — roads, water, schools, sanitation, livelihoods. Panchayati Raj is the point where the two meet, which is why its purpose is stated as enabling people to participate in development administration rather than as any single outcome. The institutional history is a sequence of committees pushing that meeting-point further. Balwantrai Mehta in 1957 created the three-tier design. Ashok Mehta, appointed in December 1977 and reporting in August 1978, proposed a two-tier alternative of Zila Parishad and Mandal Panchayat covering populations of about 15,000 to 20,000, and reframed Panchayati Raj as a political rather than merely administrative institution. G. V. K. Rao in 1985 examined rural development administration and found the process bureaucratised. L. M. Singhvi in 1986 recommended that Panchayati Raj be given constitutional status and that the Gram Sabha be treated as the base of decentralised democracy. The 64th Amendment Bill of 1989 carried that recommendation, passed the Lok Sabha and was defeated in the Rajya Sabha; the 73rd Amendment finally succeeded in 1992 and came into force on 24 April 1993, adding Part IX and the Eleventh Schedule. What the Amendment guarantees is the structure — three tiers, five-year terms, reserved seats, a State Election Commission and a State Finance Commission. What it leaves to the States is the substance, because Article 243G only says a State Legislature 'may' devolve; whether funds, functions and functionaries actually follow is a State decision, and that gap is why devolution varies so sharply between States.

The stem says 'main purpose', and that superlative is the instruction: separate the purpose of an institution from the outcomes it may produce. Run each option through one test — would this still be true if the Panchayat performed its constitutional role perfectly but the monsoon failed and the harvest collapsed? Agricultural production would fall, so (a) cannot be the purpose. Employment might fall with it, so (b) cannot be either. Political awareness might rise or fall depending on how the elections went, so (c) is contingent too. Only (d) survives, because it describes what the institution IS FOR rather than what it might achieve — and an institution's purpose has to be something it can deliver by functioning, not something the weather can take away. A second, faster reading works on the language. Three options name results — production, employment, awareness. One names a mechanism of governance, and it is the only one carrying the word 'administration'. Examiners who build a 'main purpose' question almost always surround the functional answer with attractive outcomes. The single discriminating fact, if you want a citation rather than a heuristic, is Article 243G: the Constitution assigns Panchayats 'the preparation of plans for economic development and social justice' and 'the implementation of schemes' for the same, which is the definition of participation in development administration and is written nowhere about crops, jobs or consciousness.

• The Balwantrai Mehta study team was appointed in January 1957 under the Committee on Plan Projects to review the Community Development Programme (launched 2 October 1952) and the National Extension Service (2 October 1953); it reported in November 1957 that the programmes failed for want of people's participation and recommended 'democratic decentralisation' through a three-tier Gram Panchayat, Panchayat Samiti and Zila Parishad. The National Development Council accepted it in January 1958.
• Panchayati Raj was inaugurated by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru at Nagaur, Rajasthan on 2 October 1959, making Rajasthan the first State to adopt it; Andhra Pradesh followed on 1 November 1959.
• Article 40 (Directive Principle): the State shall organise village panchayats and endow them with the powers and authority necessary to enable them to function as units of self-government. Article 243G: a State Legislature may endow Panchayats with powers to function as institutions of self-government, including for 'the preparation of plans for economic development and social justice' and 'the implementation of schemes' for the same, over the 29 subjects of the Eleventh Schedule.
• The road to constitutional status: Ashok Mehta Committee appointed December 1977 and reporting August 1978 (two tiers — Zila Parishad and Mandal Panchayat for 15,000-20,000 people); G. V. K. Rao Committee 1985 on rural development administration; L. M. Singhvi Committee 1986, which first recommended constitutional recognition and treated the Gram Sabha as the base of decentralised democracy; the 64th Amendment Bill of 1989, which passed the Lok Sabha but fell in the Rajya Sabha; and finally the 73rd Amendment, 1992, in force 24 April 1993.
• UPSC adjudicated this very distinction in 2015: of people's participation in development, political accountability, democratic decentralisation and financial mobilisation, only the first and third were marked as the fundamental objects of the Panchayati Raj system.
• Bihar context: PIB records that Bihar was the first State in the country to provide 50% reservation for women in Panchayats, and the national National Panchayati Raj Day event of 24 April 2025 was held at Lohna Uttar Gram Panchayat, Jhanjharpur block, Madhubani district, where devolution to Panchayats over the previous decade was put at more than Rs 2 lakh crore.

• Choosing an outcome (production, employment, awareness) over a function when the stem says 'main purpose' — an institution's purpose must be something it delivers by functioning
• Crediting the Balwantrai Mehta Committee with recommending constitutional status; that was the L. M. Singhvi Committee in 1986, and Ashok Mehta had proposed a two-tier structure in between
• Assuming the 73rd Amendment compelled devolution — Article 243G says the State Legislature 'may' endow Panchayats, so the extent of real devolution differs from State to State

BPSC asks the purpose directly, in one line, and stacks the option set with attractive real-world benefits so that only a candidate who has separated function from outcome picks the right one. UPSC almost never asks it so nakedly: in 2015 it asked which of four candidate objects are 'fundamental' and required you to reject two of them, and in 2013 it tested the same idea sideways by asking whether the Constitution prescribes that Panchayats prepare plans for economic development and social justice. Same concept, but UPSC makes you draw the line between object and consequence yourself.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Balwantrai Mehta Committee, which recommended a three-tier Panchayati Raj system, was appointed primarily to examine the working of

  • (a)the land reform legislation of the States
  • (b)the Community Development Programme and the National Extension Service
  • (c)the working of the Zamindari Abolition Acts
  • (d)the financial relations between the Union and the States

  Answer(b) the Community Development Programme and the National Extension Service — the Committee was appointed in January 1957, reported in November 1957 that the programmes lacked people's participation, and proposed democratic decentralisation as the cure.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which Article of the Constitution directs that Panchayats be endowed with powers to prepare plans for economic development and social justice?

  • (a)Article 40
  • (b)Article 243B
  • (c)Article 243G
  • (d)Article 243-I

  Answer(c) Article 243G — Article 40 is the Directive Principle on organising village panchayats, 243B provides the three tiers, and 243-I creates the State Finance Commission.