MPSC 2026 Prelims Paper-I · Question 78 of 100

Correct — option (2), '(a) and (d)'. The stem asks which statements are INCORRECT, with 'incorrect' printed in bold, and exactly two of the four fail. Statement (a) is wrong on both its facts: the Committee on Public Undertakings was created in 1964, and it was created on the recommendation of the KRISHNA MENON COMMITTEE, not of Pandit Nehru. Statement (d) is wrong on its number: the term of office of the members of this committee is ONE year, not two — the same one-year term that the Public Accounts Committee and the Estimates Committee carry, all three being re-elected annually. The other two statements hold. Statement (b) is correct: the chairman is appointed by the Speaker from amongst those members of the committee who are drawn from the Lok Sabha only, so a Rajya Sabha member of the committee can never chair it. Statement (c) is correct: the committee began with 15 members, 10 from the Lok Sabha and 5 from the Rajya Sabha, and its strength was raised in 1974 to 22 — 15 from the Lok Sabha and 7 from the Rajya Sabha — which is where it stands. So the two false statements are (a) and (d), and the answer is option (2). Statement (a) is worth pausing on as a specimen of distractor design: it takes a real event, the creation of a committee in the mid-1960s, and attaches to it a famous name and a nearly-right year. Both halves have to be checked, and the wrong attribution is the more important of the two, because a candidate who has learnt the phrase 'Krishna Menon Committee' spots it instantly.

• (1)(a) and (b) — This option correctly identifies statement (a) as false but then condemns statement (b), which is true. The chairman of the Committee on Public Undertakings is indeed appointed by the Speaker from amongst its Lok Sabha members alone. The same restriction applies to the Public Accounts Committee, and the underlying logic is the same in both cases: these are instruments of financial scrutiny, financial control rests with the popular House, and the Rajya Sabha members are associated with the committee rather than placed in charge of it. A candidate who knows only that the Rajya Sabha is represented on the committee may read statement (b) as an unfair exclusion and mark it false.
• (3)(c) and (d) — Statement (d) is correctly identified as false, but statement (c) is not. The figures in statement (c) are exactly right: since 1974 the committee has had 15 members elected from the Lok Sabha and 7 from the Rajya Sabha, making 22 in all. This option is the one that catches a candidate who has confused the Committee on Public Undertakings with the Estimates Committee, whose 30 members are all drawn from the Lok Sabha and which has no Rajya Sabha component at all. Keeping the three financial committees straight by their numbers — 22, 30, 22 — is the whole defence against this option.
• (4)(b), (c) and (d) — This option condemns three statements, of which only one — (d) — actually fails, and it lets the genuinely false statement (a) pass unchallenged. That last point is the tell: an option that omits the statement most obviously open to attack is usually built to punish a candidate who never tested it. Statements (b) and (c) are both accurate descriptions of the committee's composition and chairmanship. Marking three statements as wrong in a set where two are demonstrably right is a heavy commitment, and in statement-based questions the safer discipline is to establish what is TRUE first and let the remainder identify itself.

Parliament exercises financial control through three standing committees, and they are best learnt as a set because papers constantly cross-examine one against another. The PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE, the oldest, was first set up in 1921 under the Government of India Act 1919; it has 22 members, 15 elected by the Lok Sabha and not more than 7 by the Rajya Sabha, and its central task is to examine the audit report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General after it has been laid before Parliament. The ESTIMATES COMMITTEE has 30 members, all from the Lok Sabha and none from the Rajya Sabha, which makes it the largest committee of Parliament; it examines the estimates of expenditure and suggests economies. The COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC UNDERTAKINGS, created in 1964 on the recommendation of the Krishna Menon Committee, began with 15 members and was enlarged in 1974 to 22 — 15 from the Lok Sabha and 7 from the Rajya Sabha. In all three, members are elected annually by the principle of proportional representation through the single transferable vote, the term of office is one year, and a minister cannot be elected a member.

The Committee on Public Undertakings exists because a large part of the government's money passes through bodies that are not government departments. Its functions are to examine the reports and accounts of public undertakings; to examine the reports of the Comptroller and Auditor-General on them; and to examine, in the context of their autonomy and efficiency, whether their affairs are being managed in accordance with sound business principles and prudent commercial practices. It also discharges such other functions of the Public Accounts Committee and the Estimates Committee in relation to public undertakings as the Speaker may allot to it. Equally important is what it may not do: it is not to examine matters of major government policy as distinct from business or commercial functions, matters of day-to-day administration, or matters for which machinery has been established by a special statute under which a particular undertaking is constituted. Its recognised limitations are that it can take up only a handful of undertakings in a year, that its work is necessarily a post-mortem of decisions already taken, and that it lacks technical expertise of its own.

• The Committee on Public Undertakings was created in 1964 on the recommendation of the KRISHNA MENON COMMITTEE. Attributing its creation to Pandit Nehru, or dating it to 1963, is wrong on both counts.
• It began with 15 members — 10 from the Lok Sabha and 5 from the Rajya Sabha — and its strength was raised in 1974 to 22, being 15 from the Lok Sabha and 7 from the Rajya Sabha.
• The term of office of its members is ONE year. Members are elected annually by Parliament from among its own members by the principle of proportional representation through a single transferable vote, and a minister cannot be elected a member.
• The chairman is appointed by the Speaker from amongst those members of the committee who are drawn from the Lok Sabha only, so a Rajya Sabha member of the committee cannot chair it.
• The three financial committees compared: Public Accounts Committee 22 members (15 Lok Sabha + 7 Rajya Sabha, first set up in 1921, chairman by convention from the Opposition since 1967); Estimates Committee 30 members, all from the Lok Sabha, the largest committee of Parliament; Committee on Public Undertakings 22 members (15 + 7).

• Attaching a famous name to a committee's origin. The Committee on Public Undertakings owes its creation to the Krishna Menon Committee's recommendation, not to Pandit Nehru.
• Getting the term of office wrong. All three financial committees have a one-year term with annual re-election; two years, three years and five years are all standard false alternatives.
• Mixing up the composition figures. The Estimates Committee's 30 members are all from the Lok Sabha, while both the Public Accounts Committee and the Committee on Public Undertakings have 22 members split 15 and 7.

Parliamentary committees are examined almost entirely on numbers and names, and both this paper and UPSC show it. The composition question asks how many members a committee has and from which House they come — UPSC's 2014 item asking which is the largest committee of Parliament is the purest form of it. The origin question asks who recommended a committee's creation and when. The chairmanship question asks who appoints the chairman and from which House, and often adds the Public Accounts Committee's post-1967 convention of an Opposition chairman. The function question asks what a committee may examine and, more revealingly, what it may not. This paper's multi-statement format simply bundles four of those into one item, so a single well-made comparison table answers every version of the question.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Committee on Public Undertakings of the Indian Parliament was created in 1964 on the recommendation of :

  • (a)the Ashok Mehta Committee
  • (b)the Krishna Menon Committee
  • (c)the Estimates Committee itself
  • (d)the Administrative Reforms Commission

  Answer(b) the Krishna Menon Committee — it recommended a dedicated parliamentary committee to scrutinise the growing number of public undertakings, and the committee was constituted in 1964 with 15 members, enlarged to 22 in 1974. The Ashok Mehta Committee reported on panchayati raj, and the first Administrative Reforms Commission was set up in 1966.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following statements about the three financial committees of Parliament is correct?

  • (a)The Estimates Committee has 30 members, all drawn from the Lok Sabha
  • (b)The Public Accounts Committee has 30 members drawn from both Houses
  • (c)The Committee on Public Undertakings is chaired by a Rajya Sabha member
  • (d)Members of all three committees hold office for a term of three years

  Answer(a) The Estimates Committee has 30 members, all drawn from the Lok Sabha — which also makes it the largest committee of Parliament. The Public Accounts Committee has 22 members (15 Lok Sabha, up to 7 Rajya Sabha); the chairman of the Committee on Public Undertakings must come from its Lok Sabha members; and the term of office in all three committees is one year.