Which of the following is not an essential function of Gram Panchayat in Madhya Pradesh?

Question

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Correct — D is the odd one out: running police stations is not a Gram Panchayat function at all. 'Public order' and 'Police' are State List subjects (Entries 1 and 2), and in Madhya Pradesh thanas are established and run by the State's police administration, not by any panchayat. Policing appears nowhere among the 29 subjects of the Eleventh Schedule, which is the list of matters a State may devolve to panchayats under Article 243G, and the functions enumerated for a Gram Panchayat in Section 49 of the Madhya Pradesh Panchayat Raj Avam Gram Swaraj Adhiniyam, 1993 are civic and developmental — sanitation, water, roads and lighting, markets and melas, care of community assets — not law enforcement.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Looking after the property and community assets it owns is a basic duty of the panchayat itself — 'maintenance of community assets' is item 29 of the Eleventh Schedule. A genuine function, so not the exception being asked for.  (b) Encouraging co-operative societies and similar collective village institutions falls within the developmental duties the Madhya Pradesh Act places on the Gram Panchayat, so it is one of its listed functions rather than the exception.  (c) It sounds too odd to be statutory, but it is: impounding stray or unowned cattle and dealing with rabid dogs is standard panchayat sanitation-and-nuisance work. The M.P. Gram Panchayat (Sanitation, Conservancy and Prevention and Abatement of Nuisance) Rules, 1999 — framed under this very Act — expressly allow a dog found to be rabid to be destroyed.

Concept: Article 243G lets a State legislature endow panchayats with such powers and authority as are necessary for them to function as institutions of self-government, and the Eleventh Schedule lists the 29 subjects that may be devolved. Madhya Pradesh gives effect to this through the Madhya Pradesh Panchayat Raj Avam Gram Swaraj Adhiniyam, 1993 (M.P. Act No. 1 of 1994), whose Section 49 enumerates the Gram Panchayat's functions. Every item on that list is civic, regulatory-of-nuisance or developmental in character; none confers coercive police power.

State PCS 2026 Q14 — Madhya Pradesh GK PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2026 Q14 — Madhya Pradesh GK PYQ with Answer