Which one of the following is not a level in the three-tier Panchayati Raj recommended by Balwant Rai Mehta Committee ?

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Correct — D, Nyaya Panchayat. The Balwant Rai Mehta Committee was appointed by the Government of India in January 1957, under the Committee on Plan Projects, to examine why the Community Development Programme of 1952 and the National Extension Service of 1953 had failed to draw villagers in. Reporting in November 1957, it concluded that the programmes had no roots because there was no elected local institution to own them, and it recommended what it called 'democratic decentralisation' — the scheme that came to be known as Panchayati Raj. Its structure had exactly three rungs, and all three are administrative and developmental: the Gram Panchayat at the village, made up of directly elected representatives; the Panchayat Samiti at the block, constituted indirectly and meant to be the executive body that actually ran development work; and the Zila Parishad at the district, also indirect, with the District Collector as chairman, meant to advise, coordinate and supervise the Panchayat Samitis under it. A Nyaya Panchayat is something else entirely — a village-level judicial body for petty civil and criminal disputes, created by ordinary State legislation rather than by the Balwant Rai Mehta design. Uttar Pradesh, for instance, has provided for Nyaya Panchayats since the U.P. Panchayat Raj Act, 1947, a decade before the committee sat. Because it belongs to the judicial side rather than the developmental hierarchy, it is not a level in the three-tier structure, and (d) is the answer. Note also that the committee deliberately separated the two functions: it wanted the elected development bodies kept free of adjudicatory work, so the omission of any judicial rung was a choice, not an oversight.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) This is the middle rung and cannot be the answer. The Panchayat Samiti sits at the block or intermediate level and was, in the committee's design, the most important of the three — the executive body with the funds, the staff and the responsibility for actually implementing development schemes, with the Block Development Officer as its executive officer. Part IX of the Constitution, inserted by the 73rd Amendment in 1992, calls it the panchayat at the intermediate level and makes it optional only for States with a population below twenty lakh.  (b) This is the base of the structure. The Gram Panchayat is the village-level body, and it is the only one of the three that the committee wanted filled by direct election; the two rungs above it were to be constituted indirectly from the tier below. It is also the tier that Article 40 of the Directive Principles had already asked the States to organise as a unit of self-government.  (c) This is the district-level rung and is part of the three-tier scheme, so it is not the exception. Do not be thrown by the naming: the committee's report called the district body the Zila Parishad, and that is still the name used in Maharashtra, Karnataka and several other States, while Uttar Pradesh calls the same body the Zila Panchayat. The label differs, the tier is the same. In the committee's design this body was to be chaired by the District Collector and was advisory, coordinating and supervisory rather than executive.

Concept: Panchayati Raj in India begins with the Balwant Rai Mehta Committee of 1957, which recommended a three-rung elected structure — Gram Panchayat at the village, Panchayat Samiti at the block, Zila Parishad at the district — linked together by indirect election, with real development functions and funds devolved to it. The National Development Council accepted the recommendations in January 1958, and Rajasthan became the first State to launch Panchayati Raj, inaugurated by Jawaharlal Nehru at Nagaur on 2 October 1959, with Andhra Pradesh following the same year. The same three-tier design was eventually written into the Constitution by the 73rd Amendment Act, 1992, which added Part IX and the Eleventh Schedule.

State PCS 2024 Q129 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2024 Q129 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer