Match List – I with List – II and select the correct answer from the code given below the lists.
List – I (Committee)
A. Balwant Rai Mehta Committee
B. Ashok Mehta Committee
C. L. M. Singhvi Committee

Question

Match List – I with List – II and select the correct answer from the code given below the lists.
List – I (Committee)
A. Balwant Rai Mehta Committee
B. Ashok Mehta Committee
C. L. M. Singhvi Committee
D. P. K. Thungun Committee
List – II (Year of Appointment)
1. 1957
2. 1977
3. 1986
4. 1988

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — A, A-1, B-2, C-3, D-4. The four committees fall in their listed order, and the code is simply the unshuffled sequence. The BALWANT RAI MEHTA Committee was appointed by the Government of India in January 1957 — formally the Team for the Study of Community Projects and National Extension Service — and its report later that year recommended 'democratic decentralisation' through a three-tier structure of Gram Panchayat, Panchayat Samiti and Zila Parishad; Rajasthan acted on it first, and Panchayati Raj was inaugurated at Nagaur on 2 October 1959 (A-1). The ASHOK MEHTA Committee followed in 1977 and moved in the opposite direction, recommending a TWO-tier system of Mandal Panchayat at the base and Zila Parishad above, with the district as the unit of planning (B-2). The L. M. SINGHVI Committee of 1986 is the one that mattered most in the long run: it recommended constitutional status for the panchayats and the revival of Nyaya Panchayats, and is the direct intellectual ancestor of the Seventy-third Amendment (C-3). That leaves the P. K. THUNGON Committee at 1988 (D-4) — the year given in the standard accounts of Panchayati Raj, though the primary record for it is thinner than for the other three. The answer does not depend on it: with 1957, 1977 and 1986 securely attached to the first three committees, only 1988 remains for the fourth.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) A complete inversion of the chronology. It dates the Balwant Rai Mehta Committee to 1986 and the Thungon Committee to 1957, turning the oldest of the four into one of the youngest. Balwant Rai Mehta is the foundational committee of Indian Panchayati Raj and precedes the others by two decades — its report is what produced the panchayats Rajasthan inaugurated in 1959.  (c) Not one pair is right. It gives Balwant Rai Mehta 1988, Ashok Mehta 1957, Singhvi 1977 and Thungon 1986. It also produces an absurdity: the Ashok Mehta Committee is a response to the decline of the panchayats set up on Balwant Rai Mehta's model, so it cannot possibly predate the committee it was reacting to.  (d) It keeps only Thungon–1988 and shuffles the other three, giving Balwant Rai Mehta 1977, Ashok Mehta 1986 and Singhvi 1957. Singhvi in 1957 is the clearest error: his committee's central recommendation was constitutional status for panchayats, an argument that only makes sense after three decades of experience with statutory panchayats had shown how easily State governments could supersede them.

Concept: The four committees mark the swings of Indian thinking on rural local government across three decades. Balwant Rai Mehta (1957) created the model: three tiers, with real weight at the intermediate Panchayat Samiti level, and community development routed through elected bodies rather than officials. The system flourished briefly and then decayed, as elections were postponed and bodies superseded. Ashok Mehta (1977) diagnosed that decay and proposed a leaner two-tier structure with the district as the planning unit, along with open participation by political parties — but its recommendations were largely not implemented at the Centre. G. V. K. Rao (1985) then argued that development administration had been bureaucratised and that the district-level machinery should be strengthened. L. M. Singhvi (1986) drew the conclusion the others had circled: that panchayats would remain fragile as long as they existed only in State statutes, and should be given constitutional status with regular elections guaranteed. That argument, after two failed Bills, became the Constitution (Seventy-third Amendment) Act, 1992, which inserted Part IX and the Eleventh Schedule and came into force on 24 April 1993.

State PCS 2022 Q48 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2022 Q48 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer