Which one of the following is not a subject that has been devolved to the Panchayati Raj Institutions by the 11th Schedule of the Constitution of India ?

Q: What is the answer to NDA (II) 2017 GAT Q52?

C. Correct: C, Higher education. The Eleventh Schedule, added by the Constitution (Seventy-third Amendment) Act of 1992 and read with Article 243G, lists twenty-nine subjects that a State legislature may entrust to its panchayats. Education appears on that list, but in a deliberately limited form: entry 17 reads 'Education, including primary and secondary schools', and the two neighbouring entries cover technical training and vocational education, and adult and non-formal education. Higher education, meaning universities and colleges, is nowhere in the Schedule; it sits in the Concurrent List of the Seventh Schedule and is run by the Union and the States, not by a village or district panchayat. So of the four options only higher education has not been devolved.

(a)Non-conventional energy resources
(b)Roads
(c)Higher education
(d)Libraries

Answer

Why

Correct: C, Higher education. The Eleventh Schedule, added by the Constitution (Seventy-third Amendment) Act of 1992 and read with Article 243G, lists twenty-nine subjects that a State legislature may entrust to its panchayats. Education appears on that list, but in a deliberately limited form: entry 17 reads 'Education, including primary and secondary schools', and the two neighbouring entries cover technical training and vocational education, and adult and non-formal education. Higher education, meaning universities and colleges, is nowhere in the Schedule; it sits in the Concurrent List of the Seventh Schedule and is run by the Union and the States, not by a village or district panchayat. So of the four options only higher education has not been devolved.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Non-conventional energy resources: This is entry 15 of the Eleventh Schedule. Small solar, biogas and micro-hydro works are exactly the kind of local energy provision the Schedule intended panchayats to take up, and it sits next to rural electrification, which is entry 14.
(b)
Roads: Roads are covered by entry 13, which reads 'Roads, culverts, bridges, ferries, waterways and other means of communication'. Village link roads are among the oldest and most familiar panchayat functions.
(d)
Libraries: Libraries are entry 20 of the Schedule, grouped with cultural activities at entry 21. A village reading room is precisely the sort of small local institution the Schedule assigns to a panchayat.

Concept

The Seventy-third Amendment of 1992 gave panchayats constitutional standing through a new Part IX and a new Eleventh Schedule. Article 243G lets a State legislature endow panchayats with such powers as may be necessary to function as institutions of self-government, including schemes for economic development and social justice in relation to the twenty-nine matters listed in the Eleventh Schedule. The Schedule is an enabling menu rather than an automatic transfer: what a panchayat in a given State actually controls depends on that State's own devolution law.

The way to crack this item is to remember the character of the list rather than all twenty-nine entries. Every subject on it is something a village, block or district body could plausibly deliver: drinking water, minor irrigation, fuel and fodder, rural housing, markets and fairs, health and sanitation, the public distribution system. Higher education fails that test at once; a gram panchayat cannot run a university. The parallel Twelfth Schedule, added by the Seventy-fourth Amendment for municipalities, carries eighteen entries and is worth learning alongside it.

Key facts

The Eleventh Schedule was inserted by the Constitution (Seventy-third Amendment) Act, 1992 and lists twenty-nine subjects for panchayats.
Article 243G is the enabling provision that lets a State legislature devolve those subjects to its panchayats.
Entry 17 of the Schedule is 'Education, including primary and secondary schools': higher education is excluded.
The Twelfth Schedule, added by the Seventy-fourth Amendment for urban local bodies, contains eighteen subjects.
Non-conventional energy sources, roads and libraries are entries 15, 13 and 20 of the Eleventh Schedule.

Which of the four sits in the Eleventh Schedule

Higher education→Not in the Schedule at all: education is devolved only up to secondary school, and universities and colleges stay with the Union and the States

Roads→Entry 13: roads, culverts, bridges, ferries, waterways and other means of communication

Non-conventional energy sources→Entry 15, sitting beside rural electrification at entry 14

Libraries→Entry 20, grouped with cultural activities at entry 21

Three of the four are named entries of the Eleventh Schedule; only higher education is absent.

Study next

Part IX of the Constitution and the Seventy-third Amendment, 1992Twelfth Schedule and the Seventy-fourth Amendment for municipalitiesArticle 243 provisions on gram sabha, reservation of seats, and State Finance CommissionsState Election Commissions and the five-year term of panchayatsBalwant Rai Mehta and Ashok Mehta committees on Panchayati Raj

Common traps

Assuming the Eleventh Schedule transfers subjects automatically: it only enables a State legislature to do so.
Mixing up the Eleventh Schedule's twenty-nine panchayat subjects with the Twelfth Schedule's eighteen municipal ones.
Reading 'education' on the list as covering colleges and universities; it stops at secondary schools.

NDA and UPSC both ask this as an odd-one-out from the twenty-nine entries, or as a plain count of subjects in the Eleventh and Twelfth Schedules.

Related PYQs

UPSC_1997_GS1_Q201997Open & attempt →

Which one of the following was NOT proposed by the 73rd Constitutional Amendment in the area of Panchayati Raj?

(a) Thirty per cent seats in all elected rural local bodies will be reserved for women candidates at all levels
(b) The States will constitute their Finance Commissions to allocate resources to Panchayati Raj Institutions
(c) The Panchayati Raj elected functionaries will be disqualified to hold their offices if they have more than two children
(d) The elections will be held in six months’ time if Panchayati Raj bodies are super-ceded or dissolved by the State government

Answer(c) The Panchayati Raj elected functionaries will be disqualified to hold their offices if they have more than two children

The same odd-one-out method applied to the rest of the Seventy-third Amendment: three provisions genuinely in Part IX and one that never was, exactly as higher education is the intruder in the Eleventh Schedule list.

NDA_GAT_2022_II_Q1372022Open & attempt →

Which one of the following is not a power of Panchayats under Article 243G?

(a) Land improvement
(b) Implementation of land reforms
(c) Land consolidation and soil conservation
(d) Regulation of land revenue

Answer(d) Regulation of land revenue

The identical odd-one-out built on the same Schedule, five years later: three genuine entries and one outsider, which is how NDA keeps returning to Article 243G.

Practice

practice, not a real PYQ
How many subjects are listed in the Eleventh Schedule of the Constitution of India?
- (a)Eighteen
- (b)Twenty-two
- (c)Twenty-nine
- (d)Thirty-two
Answer(c) Twenty-nine: the Eleventh Schedule carries twenty-nine subjects for panchayats, against the Twelfth Schedule's eighteen for municipalities.
practice, not a real PYQ
Which Article of the Constitution enables a State legislature to endow panchayats with powers over the subjects in the Eleventh Schedule?
- (a)Article 243G
- (b)Article 280
- (c)Article 356
- (d)Article 370
Answer(a) Article 243G: it lets a State legislature give panchayats the powers needed to work as institutions of self-government in relation to the Eleventh Schedule's subjects.