How many items are there in the 11th Schedule of the Constitution of India ?

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — C, 29. The Eleventh Schedule contains 29 items, running from 'Agriculture, including agricultural extension' at entry 1 to 'Maintenance of community assets' at entry 29. It was added to the Constitution by the Constitution (Seventy-third Amendment) Act, 1992, which came into force on 24 April 1993, and it is anchored to Article 243G — the provision that allows the Legislature of a State, by law, to endow Panchayats with such powers and authority as may be necessary to enable them to function as institutions of self-government, including the preparation and implementation of plans for economic development and social justice 'in relation to the matters listed in the Eleventh Schedule'. That wording matters: the 29 items are a menu of subjects that a State may devolve, not a set of powers the Constitution transfers to Panchayats automatically, which is why the depth of devolution still differs sharply from State to State. Its twin, the Twelfth Schedule, was added by the Seventy-fourth Amendment in the same year for Municipalities and carries 18 items under Article 243W. Lock the pair together — 29 for Panchayats, 18 for Municipalities — and this question becomes a one-second recall.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) 22 is a number that appears elsewhere in the Constitution and gets misfiled here — the Eighth Schedule now lists 22 languages, and the Constitution had 22 Parts at commencement. Neither has anything to do with the Eleventh Schedule, which has 29 items.  (b) 24 corresponds to no list in Part IX or Part IXA. It is a plausible-looking near miss placed to catch a candidate who half-remembers 'somewhere in the twenties' — the actual figure is 29.  (d) 32 is the other side of the same near-miss trap, and it is easily confused with Article 32 (the right to constitutional remedies). The Eleventh Schedule stops at 29 items, the last being maintenance of community assets.

Concept: Part IX of the Constitution, inserted by the Seventy-third Amendment in 1992, turned Panchayati Raj from a Directive Principle (Article 40) into a constitutional obligation: a three-tier structure under Article 243B, a Gram Sabha of the village's registered voters, reservation of seats for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and — to the extent of not less than one-third — for women under Article 243D, five-year terms under Article 243E, a State Election Commission under Article 243K and a State Finance Commission under Article 243I. The Eleventh Schedule is the functional half of that package: 29 subjects, largely rural and developmental, that a State Legislature may hand down to Panchayats under Article 243G so that they have something substantial to govern.

State PCS 2019 Q144 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2019 Q144 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer