Ashok Mehta committee recommendations on Panchayati raj Upsc

The Mehta Committee suggested that the administration should be decentralized and the administration should be set under the power of local bodies.

Also, the community development blocks should be devised as a decisive democratic section with an elected Panchayat Union to operate as a block of developmental exercise in the area. The committee also recommended the creation of District Development Councils (Zila Parishad) at the district level.

This Zila Parishad should have all the Presidents of the Panchayat Unions (Samities), MLA, and MP including district level officers of the Public Health, agriculture, veterinary, and education departments as members and the collectors as the chairman.

The district body is only an advisory body. Mehta Committee was welcomed and Panchayat Raj legislation was enacted in the 1960s. About 90% of the country was covered by the Panchayati Raj bodies.

The union government formed a committee in 1977 and put Ashoka Mehta as the chairman to work on the measures to strengthen the Panchayati Bodies. The Ashoka Mehta, the committee recommended that the Panchayati Raj should be local government selected in a democratic way that should work on developmental, regulatory, and municipal functions.

The committee suggested setting District Panchayat also called Zilla Parishad as the directly elected body. As a temporary composition, the committee suggested the preservation of the Panchayat union at the block level.

Not as a unit of local self-government but as a chosen middle-level post arm for the District Development Council. Mehta committee presented its opinion in 1978, which was accepted and motivated various states to add relevant reforms in their Panchayat Acts such as Karnataka, Maharastra, Andra Pradesh, West Bengal, and Gujarat.

Some committees were established between 1978 and 1986, to strengthen the local self-government systems such as C.H.Hanumantha Rao Committee, G.V.K Rao Committee, and L.M.Singhvi Committee. 

The barely lesser revision was proposed by these committees from the Ashok Mehta committee. The next landmark was the presentation of the 64th and 65th constitutional Amendment Bills, in July 1989 by the Rajiv Gandhi Government.

These amendments could not be passed in the Council of states (Rajya Sabha). Following several efforts, in 1992 including significant opinions of earlier studies on this matter, the state drafted and presented in the 73rd and 74th constitutional Amendment bills in Parliament in 1992.

It was enacted by the Indian Parliament in 1993. The 73rd and 74th constitutional Amendments proposed new part IX and IXA in the Indian Consitution comprising Articles 243 to 243 ZG.part IX and IXA in the Indian Consitution comprising Articles 243 to 243 ZG.

* * All the Notes in this blog, are referred from Tamil Nadu State Board Books and Samacheer Kalvi Books. Kindly check with the original Tamil Nadu state board books and Ncert Books.
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