National Panchayati Raj Day in India is celebrated on

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — D, 24 April. The day commemorates the commencement of the Constitution (Seventy-third Amendment) Act, 1992, which came into force on 24 April 1993 and gave Panchayati Raj institutions constitutional status for the first time. The amendment inserted Part IX (Articles 243 to 243-O) and the Eleventh Schedule, made the three-tier structure mandatory, fixed a five-year term with elections within six months of a dissolution, reserved seats for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and not less than one-third of all seats and chairperson posts for women, and required every State to set up a State Election Commission and a State Finance Commission. The Ministry of Panchayati Raj, created in 2004, has marked the anniversary as National Panchayati Raj Day since 2010. The point to hold on to is that the day celebrates the constitutional status of panchayats, not the origin of panchayats.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) 26 January is Republic Day — the day the Constitution of India itself came into force in 1950. It marks the whole constitutional order, not the local-government amendment of 1993.  (b) 2 October is Gandhi Jayanti, and it is the tempting wrong answer for a good reason: Panchayati Raj really was inaugurated on 2 October 1959, when Jawaharlal Nehru launched the three-tier system at Nagaur in Rajasthan on the Balwant Rai Mehta Committee's recommendation. But that was an executive initiative of the States, 34 years before panchayats acquired constitutional status — and it is the 1993 commencement that the national day marks.  (c) 21 April is Civil Services Day, the day on which Sardar Patel addressed the first batch of administrative-service probationers in 1947. Its closeness to 24 April is exactly what the option is doing in this set — the two April dates are meant to be confused.

Concept: Panchayats existed long before 1993, but only as creatures of State law: a State could constitute them, suspend them, postpone their elections indefinitely or starve them of funds. The Constitution (Seventy-third Amendment) Act, 1992 changed their legal foundation. It added Part IX and the Eleventh Schedule, made the three tiers — village, intermediate and district — obligatory for States with a population above twenty lakh, guaranteed a five-year term, mandated reservation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and women, and handed the conduct of panchayat elections to an independent State Election Commission. The Act was passed by Parliament in December 1992 and came into force on 24 April 1993 — the date now observed as National Panchayati Raj Day.

State PCS 2019 Q70 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2019 Q70 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer