MPSC 2026 Prelims Paper-I · Question 23 of 100

Correct — option (2), 700. The Government Resolution of the Rural Development Department dated 9 October 2024 relaxed the population condition for constituting a separate gram panchayat in a Banjara, Laman or Labhan tanda from 1,000 to 700. The figure to carry is 700, and the fact that gives it meaning is the number it replaced. Before that Resolution a tanda needed a population of 1,000 before it could be given a gram panchayat of its own; below that threshold it stayed attached as a hamlet to the gram panchayat of some larger neighbouring village. That arrangement was the grievance the 2024 order answers. A tanda is typically a compact settlement of the Banjara/Laman community sited apart from the revenue village — often on higher or poorer ground, sometimes a few kilometres away — and where it was small enough to fall short of the old threshold, it had no panchayat of its own, no separate share in devolved funds, and its needs competed for attention inside a body dominated by the parent village. Lowering the bar to 700 brings a large number of such settlements over the line and lets them constitute their own panchayat, elect their own sarpanch and receive funds directly. Note precisely what the order does and does not do: it changes a population threshold for constituting a panchayat: it does not create a new tier of local government and it does not alter the constitutional scheme, which continues to run on Part IX of the Constitution and, in this state, on the Bombay Village Panchayats Act, 1958. Read the question the way the Commission wrote it — it names the Government Resolution and its date, so it is testing whether the candidate followed one specific administrative decision, not whether the candidate can reason out a plausible number.

• (1)600 — 600 is below the figure the 2024 Government Resolution fixed. It is the number a candidate reaches by assuming the relaxation went further than it did — from 1,000 all the way down to 600 — or by importing a round threshold remembered from some other discussion of village panchayat formation. The order relaxed the condition to 700 and no lower, and in a question that names the resolution and its date the only defensible answer is the figure that resolution actually carries.
• (3)800 — 800 understates the relaxation. A candidate who remembers that the threshold used to be 1,000 and that it was brought down will find 800 comfortable, because it is the smallest step that still counts as a reduction. But the reduction was of 300, not 200, and the resulting figure is 700. Half-remembering the direction of a change without its magnitude is the commonest way to lose this mark, and it is why the earlier figure of 1,000 is worth memorising alongside the new one.
• (4)900 — 900 is the nearest of the four to the pre-2024 position and therefore the weakest as a relaxation — a cut of only a hundred would leave most small tandas exactly where they were, which is the opposite of what the order set out to achieve. It is included to catch a candidate who has heard that the threshold moved but is anchoring on the old 1,000 and shaving it. The operative figure in the Government Resolution of 9 October 2024 is 700.

The gram panchayat is the base tier of the three-tier panchayati raj system that Part IX of the Constitution, inserted by the 73rd Amendment in 1992, made mandatory for states above the population threshold, with the gram sabha under Article 243A as the assembly of registered voters of the village. Which settlement counts as a 'village' for this purpose is left to state law and executive orders, and that is where population thresholds live. In Maharashtra, panchayats are constituted under the Bombay Village Panchayats Act, 1958, and the Rural Development Department fixes, by Government Resolution, the conditions a habitation must satisfy before it can be separated from its parent village and given a panchayat of its own — a minimum population, and usually a minimum distance from the parent settlement. Thresholds are a rationing device: too low and the state is left with thousands of panchayats too small to staff or fund, too high and genuinely distinct habitations are left as appendages of villages they have nothing to do with. Every relaxation of a threshold is a judgement that the second cost has grown larger than the first for a particular class of settlement.

The Banjara, also known as Laman or Labhan, are a large community in Maharashtra classified under the Vimukta Jati and Nomadic Tribes categories, historically a caravan-trading and pack-bullock transport people who settled into distinct habitations called tandas. The tanda's defining physical feature is separateness — it sits apart from the revenue village, which is precisely what made the old population threshold bite hardest on this community: their settlements were distinct enough to need their own administration but too small to qualify for it. The 9 October 2024 order belongs with a wider set of state measures aimed at tanda development, announced under the name of Sant Sevalal Maharaj, the community's revered saint, whose principal shrine at Pohradevi in Washim district is its largest pilgrimage centre. For the exam, the pattern to notice is that MPSC Paper-I regularly asks for one number out of one dated Government Resolution of the preceding eighteen months — the state's administrative decisions are examinable current affairs in a way that is quite distinct from national news.

• Government Resolution of the Rural Development Department dated 9 October 2024: the minimum population for constituting a separate gram panchayat in a Banjara/Laman/Labhan tanda is relaxed to 700.
• The threshold this replaced was 1,000, the figure the 2024 Resolution replaced for tanda areas panchayat.
• The Banjara/Laman/Labhan community is classified in Maharashtra under the Vimukta Jati and Nomadic Tribes (VJNT) categories; its settlements are called tandas and characteristically stand apart from the revenue village they are attached to.
• Gram panchayats in Maharashtra are constituted under the Bombay Village Panchayats Act, 1958, within the framework of Part IX of the Constitution inserted by the 73rd Amendment Act, 1992, which made the three-tier system and the gram sabha constitutional requirements.
• Pohradevi in Washim district, the principal shrine of Sant Sevalal Maharaj, is the largest centre of the Banjara community in Maharashtra, and state schemes for tanda development are announced in his name.

• Confusing the threshold for a NEW separate panchayat with any general statement about village size. The number in this question is a condition for splitting a habitation off into a panchayat of its own; it is not a definition of a village and not a uniform statewide minimum for every settlement.
• Ignoring the date printed in the stem. MPSC frequently asks about a specific Government Resolution and gives its date precisely because two orders on the same subject carry different numbers — here the earlier order gives 1,000 and the Resolution of 9 October 2024 gives 700.
• Treating Banjara, Laman and Labhan as three separate communities. The Government Resolution names all three because they are alternative names in use for the same community across different parts of Maharashtra, which is also why the question prints them with slashes.

State-level current affairs in MPSC Paper-I is dominated by dated executive decisions rather than by news events. The recurring shapes are: the bare number from a named Government Resolution, as here; the department that issued an order; the year a state scheme was launched and the community or district it targets; and the renaming or reorganisation of an administrative unit. A candidate covers this ground by maintaining a running one-line log of every significant Maharashtra Government Resolution — date, department, subject and the single number or name it changes — because that is exactly the granularity at which the Commission asks. Reasoning cannot substitute for the log: all four options here are plausible round numbers and only the order itself settles the matter.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Before the Government Resolution of 9 October 2024, what minimum population did a Banjara/Laman tanda in Maharashtra need in order to be constituted as a separate Gram Panchayat ?

  • (a)700
  • (b)800
  • (c)1,000
  • (d)1,500

  Answer(c) 1,000 — the threshold that applied to tanda areas before 2024. The order of 9 October 2024 brought this down to 700, so a candidate who holds both numbers can answer the question from either direction, which is how the Commission has asked it.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Banjara/Laman/Labhan community of Maharashtra, whose settlements are called tandas, is classified in the state under which reservation grouping ?

  • (a)Scheduled Tribes
  • (b)Vimukta Jati and Nomadic Tribes
  • (c)Special Backward Class
  • (d)Socially and Educationally Backward Class

  Answer(b) Vimukta Jati and Nomadic Tribes — the VJNT grouping, under which Maharashtra classifies its denotified and nomadic communities with their own reservation quota, distinct from the Scheduled Tribes list notified under Article 342. Tanda-specific development schemes flow from this classification.