Which of the following matters are included in the 12th schedule of the Constitution of India ?
(a) Promotion of artistic vision, fire fighting services
(b) Cremation ground and electric crematorium
(

Question

Which of the following matters are included in the 12th schedule of the Constitution of India ?
(a) Promotion of artistic vision, fire fighting services
(b) Cremation ground and electric crematorium
(c) Market & fairs, rural housing
(d) Protection of the interest of the handicapped and mentally retarded, protection of the environment.

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — option (1), 'Only (a), (b) and (d)'. The Twelfth Schedule was inserted by the Constitution (Seventy-fourth Amendment) Act, 1992 and lists eighteen subjects that a State legislature may entrust to the municipalities — the urban local bodies. Test each statement against that list. Statement (a) pairs two entries: fire services, which is item 7, and the promotion of cultural, educational and aesthetic aspects, which is item 13 and which the paper renders loosely as 'promotion of artistic vision'. Both are in the Schedule, so (a) qualifies. Statement (b) reproduces item 14 almost exactly — burials and burial grounds, cremations, cremation grounds and electric crematoriums. It qualifies. Statement (d) pairs the safeguarding of the interests of weaker sections including the handicapped and mentally retarded, which is item 9, with the protection of the environment, which appears in item 8 alongside urban forestry and the promotion of ecological aspects. It qualifies. Statement (c) is the one that fails, and it announces itself: 'markets and fairs' and 'rural housing' both belong to the ELEVENTH Schedule, the list of twenty-nine subjects for the panchayats inserted by the Seventy-third Amendment. The word 'rural' in a question about the municipal schedule is a tell that costs nothing to notice. Three statements in and one out gives option (1). One caution on the printed page: 'Promotion of artistic vision' is the paper's paraphrase, not the constitutional text, which reads 'Promotion of cultural, educational and aesthetic aspects'.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) This option keeps the one statement that must be excluded and drops two that belong. Statement (c) is out because markets and fairs and rural housing are Eleventh Schedule subjects, entrusted to panchayats, not to municipalities. Meanwhile statement (a) covers fire services and the cultural-educational-aesthetic entry, and statement (b) reproduces the cremation entry almost verbatim — both squarely inside the Twelfth Schedule. An option that admits only two of four statements in a question of this type should always be checked against the ones it silently rejects, because the rejection is doing as much work as the admission.  (c) The first two statements are correctly admitted and then the wrong third is chosen. This option swaps statement (d) for statement (c) — trading a genuine Twelfth Schedule pair (safeguarding the interests of weaker sections including the handicapped and mentally retarded, item 9; protection of the environment, part of item 8) for a genuine ELEVENTH Schedule pair. It is the option a candidate reaches by not testing statement (d) at all, on the assumption that environmental protection sounds like a State or Union subject rather than a municipal one. It is a municipal one: urban forestry and protection of the environment sit together in the Schedule.  (d) This retains the false statement (c) and drops the true statement (a). Statement (a) is the least obvious of the three that qualify, because 'promotion of artistic vision' is not the constitutional wording and a candidate scanning for the phrase 'cultural, educational and aesthetic aspects' will not find it. But its other limb, fire fighting services, is unmistakably item 7 of the Schedule, and fire services are among the most recognisably municipal functions there are. Rejecting a statement because half of it is loosely worded, while accepting one whose subjects belong to a different Schedule altogether, is the exact inversion of careful reading.

Concept: Local government was given constitutional standing by two amendments passed together in 1992. The Seventy-third Amendment inserted Part IX, Articles 243 to 243-O, and the Eleventh Schedule, which lists twenty-nine subjects for the panchayats; it came into force on 24 April 1993. The Seventy-fourth Amendment inserted Part IXA, Articles 243P to 243ZG, and the Twelfth Schedule, which lists eighteen subjects for the municipalities; it came into force on 1 June 1993. In each case the Schedule is not a transfer of power by itself: Article 243G for panchayats and Article 243W for municipalities empower the State legislature to endow these bodies with such powers and authority as may be necessary to enable them to function as institutions of self-government, and the Schedule is the menu from which the State may draw. The practical consequence is that devolution varies considerably from State to State even though the Schedules are uniform across the country.

State PCS 2026 Q76 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2026 Q76 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer