Which of the following Constitution Amendment Acts provided for the formation of the 'Metropolitan Planning Committee' ?

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — option (4), 74th Constitution Amendment Act. The 74th Constitutional Amendment Act, 1992, is the amendment that gave constitutional status to urban local self-government by inserting Part IXA ('The Municipalities') into the Constitution, covering Articles 243P to 243ZG, along with the Twelfth Schedule listing the functions municipalities may perform. Within this new Part IXA, Article 243ZE specifically provides for a Committee for Metropolitan Planning: in every metropolitan area (broadly, an urban agglomeration with a population of one million or more), a Metropolitan Planning Committee (MPC) must be constituted to consolidate the development plans prepared by the Municipalities and Panchayats within that area into a single draft development plan for the metropolitan area as a whole, taking into account matters of common interest such as coordinated spatial planning, sharing of water and other physical and natural resources, and integrated infrastructure development. Because Article 243ZE — the specific provision creating the Metropolitan Planning Committee — was inserted by the 74th Amendment, that is the correct answer.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) The 42nd Amendment Act, 1976, is one of the most sweeping amendments in India's constitutional history, chiefly remembered for adding the words 'Socialist' and 'Secular' to the Preamble, adding Fundamental Duties (Article 51A) via a new Part IVA, and expanding the Directive Principles — but it made no provision for local self-government or metropolitan planning at all; Part IXA and Article 243ZE did not exist until 1992, sixteen years later.  (b) The 44th Amendment Act, 1978, is best known for undoing several changes made by the 42nd Amendment during the Emergency period, notably removing the right to property from the list of Fundamental Rights (making it only a legal right under Article 300A) and restoring important safeguards around the proclamation of Emergency. It has no connection to urban local government structures or metropolitan planning, both of which entered the Constitution only with the 74th Amendment in 1992.  (c) The 73rd Amendment Act, 1992, is the companion amendment to the 74th, but it deals with rural local self-government, not urban: it inserted Part IX ('The Panchayats', Articles 243 to 243O) and the Eleventh Schedule, giving constitutional status to Gram Panchayats, Panchayat Samitis and Zila Parishads at the village, intermediate and district levels. The Metropolitan Planning Committee is specifically an urban-area body, created by the 74th Amendment's Part IXA, not by the 73rd Amendment's rural Panchayati Raj provisions; the 73rd Amendment's closest rural counterpart is the District Planning Committee under Article 243ZD, a separate and easily confused provision.

Concept: The 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment Acts, both passed in 1992 and in force from 1993, together completed India's three-tier system of local self-government by giving constitutional backing to rural bodies (Panchayati Raj, via the 73rd Amendment's Part IX) and urban bodies (Municipalities, via the 74th Amendment's Part IXA) respectively. The 74th Amendment established three types of urban local bodies depending on the settlement's size and transitional status — Nagar Panchayats for areas transitioning from rural to urban, Municipal Councils for smaller urban areas, and Municipal Corporations for larger urban areas — and mandated regular elections, reservation of seats for SCs/STs/women, and State Finance and Election Commissions to oversee them. For large urban agglomerations specifically, Article 243ZE requires a Metropolitan Planning Committee to prepare a single, coordinated draft development plan spanning the multiple municipalities and panchayats that a sprawling metropolitan area typically contains, since urban growth rarely respects a single municipality's boundaries.

State PCS 2025 Q71 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q71 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer