Uttar Pradesh Quiz: Panchayati Raj and Urban Local Bodies of UP

The Seventy-third Amendment, which gave panchayats a place in the Constitution by adding Part IX, Articles 243 to 243-O, and the Eleventh Schedule, came into force on that date, and 24 April is observed every year as National Panchayati Raj Day.

The Eleventh Schedule was added by the Seventy-third Amendment and lists 29 subjects that a state legislature may devolve on the panchayats under Article 243G, among them agriculture, land improvement, minor irrigation, animal husbandry, rural housing, drinking water, roads, poverty alleviation, education, health, the public distribution system and the welfare…

Article 243B says that there shall be constituted in every state panchayats at the village, intermediate and district levels, and Article 243(d) defines a panchayat as an institution of self-government constituted under Article 243B for the rural areas.

In Uttar Pradesh the intermediate tier, which covers a development block, is called the Kshettra Panchayat, it is headed by an elected Block Pramukh and it is governed by the Uttar Pradesh Kshettra Panchayats and Zila Panchayats Adhiniyam, 1961, with the Block Development Officer as its executive officer.

In Uttar Pradesh the Zila Panchayat, the district tier of panchayati raj, is headed by an elected Adhyaksh, with an Up-Adhyaksh as the deputy, under the Uttar Pradesh Kshettra Panchayats and Zila Panchayats Adhiniyam, 1961.

It was appointed to examine the working of the Community Development Programme and the National Extension Service, and it recommended a three-tier structure of the Gram Panchayat at the village level, the Panchayat Samiti at the block level and the Zila Parishad at the district level, a scheme it called…

Article 243F says that a person shall be disqualified for being chosen as, and for being, a member of a panchayat if he is so disqualified under any law relating to elections to the legislature of the state, but adds a proviso that no person shall be disqualified on the…

The Twelfth Schedule was added by the Seventy-fourth Amendment and lists 18 subjects that a state legislature may entrust to municipalities under Article 243W, including urban planning and town planning, regulation of land use, roads and bridges, water supply, public health and sanitation, fire services, urban forestry, slum improvement and…

Article 243Q provides for three kinds of municipality: a Nagar Panchayat for a transitional area, that is an area in transition from a rural area to an urban area; a Municipal Council, called the Nagar Palika Parishad in Uttar Pradesh, for a smaller urban area; and a Municipal Corporation, the…

Article 243P defines a metropolitan area as an area having a population of ten lakh or more, comprised in one or more districts and consisting of two or more municipalities or panchayats or other contiguous areas, specified as such by the Governor.

The United Provinces Panchayat Raj Act was passed in 1947, before the Constitution came into force, and it still governs the Gram Panchayat, with its Pradhan, Up-Pradhan and panchs, as well as the Nyaya Panchayat, the judicial panchayat headed by a Sarpanch that Uttar Pradesh has retained while most states…