UPPSC 2024 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 25 of 150

Correct — C, Santhanam Committee – Panchayati Raj Finances. In the standard vocabulary of Indian administrative reform that both UPPSC and UPSC use, an unqualified 'Santhanam Committee' means K. Santhanam's Committee on Prevention of Corruption — constituted in 1962, reporting in 1964, and remembered because its central recommendation produced the Central Vigilance Commission, set up by a Government of India Resolution on 11 February 1964. Its subject was corruption in the public services, not local-body finance. Set beside three rural-development and rural-credit bodies, that is the pair the commission reads as broken, and (c) is the marked answer. Now the part a serious student must be told plainly, because it is why this item is argued over. A second, entirely real K. Santhanam body also exists: the Study Team on Panchayati Raj Finances of 1963, which examined the revenue base of Panchayati Raj institutions and recommended Panchayati Raj Finance Corporations, consolidated grants to PRIs and limited taxation powers for them. Judged against that body, the pair in option (c) is accurate — so the item is defensible on its face and is contested for exactly that reason. The commission's key nevertheless marks (c), and the only reading on which the key holds together is the anti-corruption committee. The safe way to carry this into the exam hall is to learn both bodies by year and never let the bare surname stand alone: 1962 Committee on Prevention of Corruption → Central Vigilance Commission; 1963 Study Team on Panchayati Raj Finances → Panchayati Raj Finance Corporations.

• (a)G.V.K. Rao Committee – Planning at the Block Level — Correctly matched, so it cannot be the answer. The G.V.K. Rao Committee was appointed by the Planning Commission in 1985 as the Committee to Review the Existing Administrative Arrangements for Rural Development and Poverty Alleviation Programmes. It found that rural development had been captured by the bureaucracy and cut off from the Panchayati Raj, and recommended that PRIs at district level and below — which is to say the Zila Parishad, the block and the village — be assigned the planning, implementation and monitoring of rural development programmes, along with a District Development Commissioner and regular elections to PRIs. Planning below the district, at the block, therefore sits squarely inside its brief.
• (b)Dantwala Committee – Rural Credit — Correctly matched. The Reserve Bank appointed Prof. M.L. Dantwala, the agricultural economist, to head the Committee to Review the Working of Regional Rural Banks in 1977; it reported in 1978 and recommended that the RRBs be retained and made an integral part of the rural credit structure. Note one thing that makes this option feel unsafe: Dantwala also chaired the Planning Commission's Working Group on Block Level Planning, which reported in the same year, 1978. A chairman may legitimately be associated with more than one subject, and that does not make 'rural credit' a wrong pairing for him.
• (d)Ashok Mehta Committee – Panchayati Raj Institutions — Correctly matched, and the most clearly safe pair in the set. The Ashok Mehta Committee was appointed in 1977 to examine why Panchayati Raj had lost momentum; it reported in 1978 and recommended replacing the three-tier structure with a two-tier one — Zila Parishad at the top and Mandal Panchayat at the base — with the district as the first point of decentralisation below the State.

Post-independence India built its rural administration through a long line of named committees, and prelims questions live on matching the chairman to the subject. The Panchayati Raj line runs Balwant Rai Mehta (1957, democratic decentralisation and the three-tier system) → Ashok Mehta (1977–78, a two-tier Zila Parishad and Mandal Panchayat) → G.V.K. Rao (1985, rural development administration and planning by PRIs at district level and below) → L.M. Singhvi (1986, constitutional status for Panchayats). Running alongside it are bodies on rural finance and on administrative integrity, and it is the crossing of those lines that this question exploits.

The trap here is a surname that belongs to two different committees. Kasturi Ranga Santhanam — a Constituent Assembly member and later Union minister — chaired both the 1962 Committee on Prevention of Corruption and the 1963 Study Team on Panchayati Raj Finances. Both are real, and both are frequently examined, so the correct study habit is to attach the year and the full title rather than memorising 'Santhanam = corruption'. What makes the option marked in the key defensible as an exam answer is convention rather than fact: in a set of four items where the other three are rural-development bodies, the examiner is signalling the more famous Santhanam body — the anti-corruption one — and that pairing with 'Panchayati Raj Finances' is what he calls broken. Treat this item as a warning that 'not correctly matched' questions on committees can turn on which committee an examiner has in mind, and answer by picking the pair the setter most plausibly means, not by hunting for an obscure body that rescues it.

• K. Santhanam's Committee on Prevention of Corruption was constituted in 1962 and reported in 1964; its recommendation led to the Central Vigilance Commission, set up by a Government of India Resolution on 11 February 1964 (the CVC became a statutory body only under the CVC Act, 2003).
• A separate K. Santhanam body, the Study Team on Panchayati Raj Finances, 1963, recommended Panchayati Raj Finance Corporations, consolidated grants to PRIs and limited taxation powers for them. Both committees are genuine — distinguish them by year.
• G.V.K. Rao Committee, Planning Commission, 1985 — Committee to Review the Existing Administrative Arrangements for Rural Development and Poverty Alleviation Programmes; recommended that PRIs at district level and below carry out planning, implementation and monitoring, plus a District Development Commissioner.
• Prof. M.L. Dantwala chaired the RBI's Committee to Review the Working of Regional Rural Banks (appointed 1977, reported 1978), which kept the RRBs inside the rural credit structure; he also chaired the Planning Commission's Working Group on Block Level Planning (1978).
• Ashok Mehta Committee, 1977–78 — recommended a two-tier Panchayati Raj of Zila Parishad and Mandal Panchayat, with the district as the first point of decentralisation below the State.

• Treating 'Santhanam Committee' as one body. There are two — the 1962 Committee on Prevention of Corruption and the 1963 Study Team on Panchayati Raj Finances. Always carry the year.
• Assuming a chairman maps to exactly one subject. M.L. Dantwala chaired both the Regional Rural Banks review (rural credit) and the Working Group on Block Level Planning in the same year.
• Mixing up the rural committees of the 1970s and 1980s — Ashok Mehta (1977, two-tier PRIs), G.V.K. Rao (1985, rural development administration) and L.M. Singhvi (1986, constitutional status for Panchayats).

UPPSC favours the 'which one is NOT correctly matched' format for committees; UPSC prefers 'the committee that recommended X was headed by' or a chronological ordering. Either way the examinable unit is chairman + year + one signature recommendation.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Central Vigilance Commission was set up in 1964 on the recommendation of which committee?

  • (a)Gorwala Committee
  • (b)Santhanam Committee
  • (c)Ashok Mehta Committee
  • (d)L.M. Singhvi Committee

  Answer(b) Santhanam Committee — K. Santhanam's Committee on Prevention of Corruption (1962, report 1964); the CVC was created by a Government of India Resolution on 11 February 1964 and became statutory only with the CVC Act, 2003.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which committee recommended replacing the three-tier Panchayati Raj system with a two-tier structure of Zila Parishad and Mandal Panchayat?

  • (a)Balwant Rai Mehta Committee
  • (b)Ashok Mehta Committee
  • (c)G.V.K. Rao Committee
  • (d)L.M. Singhvi Committee

  Answer(b) Ashok Mehta Committee (1977–78) — Balwant Rai Mehta (1957) gave the three-tier design, G.V.K. Rao (1985) dealt with rural development administration, and L.M. Singhvi (1986) asked for constitutional status for Panchayats.