RBSE SS Public Administration cheat sheet

Public administration is the executive branch in action: it carries out public policy once law is made, and is therefore both a process and an institution.

Woodrow Wilson's 1887 essay 'The Study of Administration' is conventionally treated as the starting point of the subject as a separate field of study.

Distinguish POSDCORB (Gulick and Urwick): Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Directing, Coordinating, Reporting, Budgeting - the managerial view.

Distinguish the integral view (all persons from top to bottom engaged in administration) from the managerial view (only those who direct and supervise).

Distinguish public administration from private administration on four tests: public accountability, legal-rational authority, compulsory clientele, and the criterion of public interest rather than profit.

Scope controversy: the 'narrow' view restricts the field to executive action; the 'broad' view includes policy formulation, legislative and judicial functions, and the role of the state in welfare.

The state's three organs - legislature, executive, judiciary - are all administrative in part; hence the modern field is described as 'government in action'.

Nature is both a science (regularities, generalisations, comparative study) and an art (judgment, discretion, situational skill); Simon's critique attacks the classical 'principles' as proverbs.

Phases of evolution: (1) politics-administration dichotomy (Wilson, Goodnow 1900); (2) principles of administration (Taylor, Fayol, Gulick, Urwick); (3) human relations and behavioural turn (Hawthorne studies, Simon, Barnard); (4) post-1945 crisis of identity and ecology (Gaus, Appleby, Riggs); (5) New Public Administration, New Public Management and governance phases.

Simon's 'The Proverbs of Administration' (1946) attacks contradictory principles, such as unity of command versus specialization, and proposes decision-making as the core of administration.

Riggs' ecological approach distinguishes fused, prismatic and diffracted societies; the prismatic (developing) society shows 'formalism', 'heterogeneity' and 'overlapping'.

Weber's ideal-type bureaucracy rests on legal-rational authority, hierarchy, written rules, impersonal office-holding and career service.

Comparative approach: Fred Riggs, Ferrel Heady and the 'comparative public administration' movement of the 1960s; the American Society for Public Administration's Comparative Administration Group (CAG) was its institutional base.

Public choice approach applies economic reasoning - rational self-interest, incentives, competition - to bureaucratic behaviour and is the intellectual base of NPM.

Systems/ecological approach (Chester Barnard, Herbert Simon, F. W. Riggs) treats administration as an open system exchanging inputs and outputs with its environment.

Historical-institutional and case-study approaches are used to study administrative development in India; behaviouralism uses empirical, quantitative and value-free methods.

Principles of organization: hierarchy, unity of command, span of control, division of work and specialization, coordination, scalar principle, and delegation.

Span of control: narrow spans create tall structures with many levels; wide spans create flat structures; Graicunas quantified superior-subordinate relationships to show span grows geometrically.

Line agencies have direct command and operational responsibility for objectives; staff agencies advise, service and support without command authority over line units.

Line-staff conflict arises from staff's advisory role, lack of accountability for results, and line's resistance to expert advice; remedies are clear charters, coordination and access to the chief executive.

Delegation has three elements - assignment of responsibility, grant of authority, and creation of accountability - and authority can be delegated while responsibility and accountability cannot.

Centralization concentrates decision authority at the top; decentralization disperses it to field units or lower levels; deconcentration is dispersal of offices, devolution is transfer of authority to autonomous elected bodies.

Hierarchy is a universal principle of organization: it fixes channels of communication, defines superior-subordinate relations, and enables unity of direction.

Committees and boards supplement hierarchy; their merits are pooled judgment and coordination, and their demerits are delay, dilution of responsibility and compromise decisions.

The chief executive heads the administrative system; functions include political leadership, policy formulation, appointment and removal, supervision and coordination, budgeting and external representation.

In a parliamentary system the real chief executive is the Prime Minister heading the Cabinet; the President or Governor is the nominal/titular executive.

In a presidential system the President is both head of state and head of government, and the Cabinet is responsible to the President, not to the legislature.

The Indian President is constitutional head (Article 53: executive power vested in the President, exercised on the advice of the Council of Ministers under Article 74).

The Governor of a State exercises executive power under Articles 153-154, acts on ministerial advice (Article 163), and has discretionary powers in specified situations.

Chief executive's staff agencies - Cabinet Secretariat, Prime Minister's Office, Cabinet Committees - coordinate policy and shield the executive from departmental fragmentation.

The chief executive's control over administration works through appointments, budget, rules, inquiries, and the power to call for information and reports.

In Indian administration the Cabinet Secretariat (created 1947) and the Prime Minister's Office are the central coordinating instruments of the chief executive.

Aristotle's classification: monarchy, aristocracy, polity (good forms) versus tyranny, oligarchy, democracy (perverted forms); modern classification rests on the relationship between legislature and executive.

Parliamentary form: executive drawn from and responsible to the legislature; presidential form: separation of personnel and tenure between executive and legislature.

India is a parliamentary democracy with federal features: a written Constitution, division of powers (Union, State, Concurrent Lists in the Seventh Schedule), independent judiciary and bicameralism.

Unitary features in the Indian federation: single citizenship, integrated judiciary, All India Services, appointment of Governors by the President, emergency provisions (Articles 352, 356, 360), and the Union's residuary powers.

Article 1 describes India as a 'Union of States'; the Constitution is federal in form but the tendency in practice is towards cooperative and centralized federalism.

The executive structure: Union - President, Vice-President, Council of Ministers, Cabinet; State - Governor, Chief Minister, Council of Ministers; local - Panchayats and Municipalities.

The civil service structure in India: All India Services (IAS, IPS, Indian Forest Service) serving both Union and States; Central Services; State Services.

The 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments (1992) gave constitutional status to Panchayats and Urban Local Bodies as the third tier of government.

Recruitment methods: direct recruitment through competitive examination, promotion from within, transfer, and deputation; selection may be merit-based, seniority-based or a combined merit-cum-seniority.

In India the Union Public Service Commission (Article 315) conducts the Civil Services Examination; the Staff Selection Commission and State Public Service Commissions handle other posts.

The 'spoils system' fills posts by patronage; the 'merit system' fills them by competitive examination - the Pendleton Act 1883 in the USA marks the shift.

Training types: pre-entry (foundation, induction) and in-service (refresher, mid-career, promotion-linked); institutions include the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (Mussoorie) and state administrative training institutes.

Promotion criteria in India: merit, seniority, merit-cum-seniority; the Departmental Promotion Committee and the Annual Confidential Report/Performance Appraisal Report are the key instruments.

Civil service conduct rules cover political neutrality, secrecy, integrity, no private business, restrictions on gifts and on criticism of government; the Central Civil Services (Conduct) Rules, 1964 govern central employees.

Article 311 provides safeguards against dismissal or removal: no removal by an authority subordinate to the appointing authority, and no removal without inquiry with a reasonable opportunity of being heard.

The 360-degree appraisal, performance management systems and the 'minimum residency period' for promotion reflect contemporary personnel reforms.

The budget is the annual statement of estimated receipts and expenditure; Article 112 requires the President to cause the 'Annual Financial Statement' to be laid before Parliament.

Budget components in India: revenue account (revenue receipts and revenue expenditure) and capital account (capital receipts and capital expenditure); the fiscal deficit = total expenditure − total receipts excluding borrowings.

Stages of budgeting: preparation (Finance Ministry), enactment (legislature), execution (departments and treasury), and audit and legislative review.

Financial control instruments: the Consolidated Fund (Article 266), Contingency Fund (Article 267), Public Account (Article 266(2)); no money can be withdrawn from the Consolidated Fund without parliamentary appropriation.

Money Bills (Article 110) can be introduced only in the Lok Sabha on the President's recommendation; the Rajya Sabha can only make recommendations within 14 days.

Vote on Account, Appropriation Bill, Finance Bill and Supplementary/Excess Grants are the main parliamentary financial instruments.

The Comptroller and Auditor General (Articles 148-151) audits all Union and State accounts, is independent of the executive, and reports to Parliament through the President.

The Public Accounts Committee and Estimates Committee of Parliament examine audit reports and estimates; the Comptroller and Auditor General's reports go to the Public Accounts Committee.

Administrative law is the branch of public law governing the powers, procedures and liabilities of administrative authorities; its sources include the Constitution, statutes, delegated legislation, and judicial decisions.

Delegated legislation is law made by the executive under authority conferred by the legislature; it is controlled by parliamentary scrutiny committees and by judicial review.

Grounds of judicial review of administrative action: illegality (ultra vires), irrationality (Wednesbury unreasonableness), procedural impropriety, and proportionality.

Natural justice has two core rules: audi alteram partem (hear the other side) and nemo judex in causa sua (no one a judge in his own cause); the Indian Constitution does not name them but courts read them into Article 14 and Article 21.

Writ remedies under Articles 32 and 226: habeas corpus, mandamus, prohibition, certiorari and quo warranto.

Control over administration: legislative (questions, debates, committees, budget, no-confidence), executive (rules, inspections, inquiries), judicial (writs, judicial review), and extra-governmental (press, civil society, ombudsman).

The Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013 created an anti-corruption ombudsman at the Union and State levels; the Central Vigilance Commission (1964) is the apex vigilance body.

The Right to Information Act, 2005 makes disclosure the rule and secrecy the exception, and provides for Central and State Information Commissions.

New Public Administration emerged from the Minnowbrook Conference (1968) and is associated with Dwight Waldo; its themes are relevance, values, social equity, change and client orientation.

New Public Management (NPM) draws on public choice and managerialism: disaggregation, competition, performance contracts, outsourcing, user charges and 'steering rather than rowing'.

NPM instruments: executive agencies, performance-related pay, service charters, contracting out, public-private partnerships, and accrual accounting.

Good governance, as used by the UNDP and World Bank, rests on participation, rule of law, transparency, responsiveness, consensus orientation, equity, effectiveness and efficiency, accountability, and strategic vision.

In India good governance is pursued through e-governance (Digital India), the Right to Information, citizen's charters, social audit, and the Sevottam framework for service delivery.

Critiques of NPM include fragmentation, loss of accountability, hollowing out of the state, and neglect of equity; 'New Public Service' and 'public value' theory (Moore) respond to these.

The Second Administrative Reforms Commission (2005-09) recommended reforms on ethics, RTI, local governance, crisis management and e-governance.

Social audit is a tool of accountability in which citizens verify records of public programmes, notably under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.

Public policy is a purposive course of action followed by government; the policy cycle runs through agenda-setting, formulation, adoption, implementation, and evaluation.

Models of policy-making: rational-comprehensive, incremental (Lindblom), mixed scanning (Etzioni), garbage-can (Cohen, March, Olsen), and elite/mass and group models.

Implementation is analysed through top-down (pressman and Wildavsky) and bottom-up (Lipsky's street-level bureaucracy) perspectives.

Planning in India: the Planning Commission was set up in 1950 by a Cabinet resolution; the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog) replaced it on 1 January 2015.

India's Five Year Plans ran from the First Plan (1951-56) to the Twelfth Plan (2012-17); the First Plan focused on agriculture; the Second on industry.

Development administration (Gant, Riggs, Edward Weidner) is concerned with the administration of development programmes and with building administrative capability for change.

NITI Aayog is a policy think tank: it prepares strategy documents, promotes cooperative and competitive federalism, and monitors schemes such as Aspirational Districts.

Policy evaluation instruments include performance audits by the Comptroller and Auditor General, outcome budgeting, third-party evaluation and social audit.

Balwant Rai Mehta Committee (1957) recommended a three-tier Panchayati Raj system: Gram Panchayat, Panchayat Samiti and Zila Parishad.

Ashok Mehta Committee (1978) recommended a two-tier system and was the first to recommend constitutional status for Panchayats.

The 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act, 1992 inserted Part IX (Articles 243 to 243-O) and the Eleventh Schedule with 29 subjects; it came into force on 24 April 1993.

Mandatory features of the 73rd Amendment: three tiers (States with population below 20 lakh may not have the intermediate tier), five-year term, elections within six months of dissolution, State Election Commission (Article 243K) and State Finance Commission (Article 243-I).

Reservation: seats for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in proportion to population, and not less than one-third of seats for women; many States, including Rajasthan, have raised the women's reservation to 50 per cent.

Gram Sabha (Article 243A) consists of all persons registered in the electoral rolls of a village; it is the foundation of the Panchayati Raj system.

Rajasthan pioneered Panchayati Raj: the system was inaugurated at Nagaur on 2 October 1959 by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, making Rajasthan the first State to implement it.

Rajasthan's Panchayati Raj Act is the Rajasthan Panchayati Raj Act, 1994; the State Election Commission and the State Finance Commission are its constitutional watchdogs.

Urban local bodies under the 74th Amendment (Part IXA, Articles 243-P to 243-ZG, Twelfth Schedule with 18 subjects) include Municipal Corporations, Municipal Councils and Nagar Panchayats.

Public administration is the executive branch in action: it carries out public policy once law is made, and is therefore both a process and an institution.

Woodrow Wilson's 1887 essay 'The Study of Administration' is conventionally treated as the starting point of the subject as a separate field of study.

Distinguish POSDCORB (Gulick and Urwick): Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Directing, Coordinating, Reporting, Budgeting - the managerial view.

Distinguish the integral view (all persons from top to bottom engaged in administration) from the managerial view (only those who direct and supervise).

Distinguish public administration from private administration on four tests: public accountability, legal-rational authority, compulsory clientele, and the criterion of public interest rather than profit.

Scope controversy: the 'narrow' view restricts the field to executive action; the 'broad' view includes policy formulation, legislative and judicial functions, and the role of the state in welfare.

The state's three organs - legislature, executive, judiciary - are all administrative in part; hence the modern field is described as 'government in action'.

Nature is both a science (regularities, generalisations, comparative study) and an art (judgment, discretion, situational skill); Simon's critique attacks the classical 'principles' as proverbs.

Phases of evolution: (1) politics-administration dichotomy (Wilson, Goodnow 1900); (2) principles of administration (Taylor, Fayol, Gulick, Urwick); (3) human relations and behavioural turn (Hawthorne studies, Simon, Barnard); (4) post-1945 crisis of identity and ecology (Gaus, Appleby, Riggs); (5) New Public Administration, New Public Management and governance phases.

Simon's 'The Proverbs of Administration' (1946) attacks contradictory principles, such as unity of command versus specialization, and proposes decision-making as the core of administration.

Riggs' ecological approach distinguishes fused, prismatic and diffracted societies; the prismatic (developing) society shows 'formalism', 'heterogeneity' and 'overlapping'.

Weber's ideal-type bureaucracy rests on legal-rational authority, hierarchy, written rules, impersonal office-holding and career service.

Comparative approach: Fred Riggs, Ferrel Heady and the 'comparative public administration' movement of the 1960s; the American Society for Public Administration's Comparative Administration Group (CAG) was its institutional base.

Public choice approach applies economic reasoning - rational self-interest, incentives, competition - to bureaucratic behaviour and is the intellectual base of NPM.

Systems/ecological approach (Chester Barnard, Herbert Simon, F. W. Riggs) treats administration as an open system exchanging inputs and outputs with its environment.

Historical-institutional and case-study approaches are used to study administrative development in India; behaviouralism uses empirical, quantitative and value-free methods.

Principles of organization: hierarchy, unity of command, span of control, division of work and specialization, coordination, scalar principle, and delegation.

Span of control: narrow spans create tall structures with many levels; wide spans create flat structures; Graicunas quantified superior-subordinate relationships to show span grows geometrically.

Line agencies have direct command and operational responsibility for objectives; staff agencies advise, service and support without command authority over line units.

Line-staff conflict arises from staff's advisory role, lack of accountability for results, and line's resistance to expert advice; remedies are clear charters, coordination and access to the chief executive.

Delegation has three elements - assignment of responsibility, grant of authority, and creation of accountability - and authority can be delegated while responsibility and accountability cannot.

Centralization concentrates decision authority at the top; decentralization disperses it to field units or lower levels; deconcentration is dispersal of offices, devolution is transfer of authority to autonomous elected bodies.

Hierarchy is a universal principle of organization: it fixes channels of communication, defines superior-subordinate relations, and enables unity of direction.

Committees and boards supplement hierarchy; their merits are pooled judgment and coordination, and their demerits are delay, dilution of responsibility and compromise decisions.

The chief executive heads the administrative system; functions include political leadership, policy formulation, appointment and removal, supervision and coordination, budgeting and external representation.

In a parliamentary system the real chief executive is the Prime Minister heading the Cabinet; the President or Governor is the nominal/titular executive.

In a presidential system the President is both head of state and head of government, and the Cabinet is responsible to the President, not to the legislature.

The Indian President is constitutional head (Article 53: executive power vested in the President, exercised on the advice of the Council of Ministers under Article 74).

The Governor of a State exercises executive power under Articles 153-154, acts on ministerial advice (Article 163), and has discretionary powers in specified situations.

Chief executive's staff agencies - Cabinet Secretariat, Prime Minister's Office, Cabinet Committees - coordinate policy and shield the executive from departmental fragmentation.

The chief executive's control over administration works through appointments, budget, rules, inquiries, and the power to call for information and reports.

In Indian administration the Cabinet Secretariat (created 1947) and the Prime Minister's Office are the central coordinating instruments of the chief executive.

Aristotle's classification: monarchy, aristocracy, polity (good forms) versus tyranny, oligarchy, democracy (perverted forms); modern classification rests on the relationship between legislature and executive.

Parliamentary form: executive drawn from and responsible to the legislature; presidential form: separation of personnel and tenure between executive and legislature.

India is a parliamentary democracy with federal features: a written Constitution, division of powers (Union, State, Concurrent Lists in the Seventh Schedule), independent judiciary and bicameralism.

Unitary features in the Indian federation: single citizenship, integrated judiciary, All India Services, appointment of Governors by the President, emergency provisions (Articles 352, 356, 360), and the Union's residuary powers.

Article 1 describes India as a 'Union of States'; the Constitution is federal in form but the tendency in practice is towards cooperative and centralized federalism.

The executive structure: Union - President, Vice-President, Council of Ministers, Cabinet; State - Governor, Chief Minister, Council of Ministers; local - Panchayats and Municipalities.

The civil service structure in India: All India Services (IAS, IPS, Indian Forest Service) serving both Union and States; Central Services; State Services.

The 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments (1992) gave constitutional status to Panchayats and Urban Local Bodies as the third tier of government.

Recruitment methods: direct recruitment through competitive examination, promotion from within, transfer, and deputation; selection may be merit-based, seniority-based or a combined merit-cum-seniority.

In India the Union Public Service Commission (Article 315) conducts the Civil Services Examination; the Staff Selection Commission and State Public Service Commissions handle other posts.

The 'spoils system' fills posts by patronage; the 'merit system' fills them by competitive examination - the Pendleton Act 1883 in the USA marks the shift.

Training types: pre-entry (foundation, induction) and in-service (refresher, mid-career, promotion-linked); institutions include the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (Mussoorie) and state administrative training institutes.

Promotion criteria in India: merit, seniority, merit-cum-seniority; the Departmental Promotion Committee and the Annual Confidential Report/Performance Appraisal Report are the key instruments.

Civil service conduct rules cover political neutrality, secrecy, integrity, no private business, restrictions on gifts and on criticism of government; the Central Civil Services (Conduct) Rules, 1964 govern central employees.

Article 311 provides safeguards against dismissal or removal: no removal by an authority subordinate to the appointing authority, and no removal without inquiry with a reasonable opportunity of being heard.

The 360-degree appraisal, performance management systems and the 'minimum residency period' for promotion reflect contemporary personnel reforms.

The budget is the annual statement of estimated receipts and expenditure; Article 112 requires the President to cause the 'Annual Financial Statement' to be laid before Parliament.

Budget components in India: revenue account (revenue receipts and revenue expenditure) and capital account (capital receipts and capital expenditure); the fiscal deficit = total expenditure − total receipts excluding borrowings.

Stages of budgeting: preparation (Finance Ministry), enactment (legislature), execution (departments and treasury), and audit and legislative review.

Financial control instruments: the Consolidated Fund (Article 266), Contingency Fund (Article 267), Public Account (Article 266(2)); no money can be withdrawn from the Consolidated Fund without parliamentary appropriation.

Money Bills (Article 110) can be introduced only in the Lok Sabha on the President's recommendation; the Rajya Sabha can only make recommendations within 14 days.

Vote on Account, Appropriation Bill, Finance Bill and Supplementary/Excess Grants are the main parliamentary financial instruments.

The Comptroller and Auditor General (Articles 148-151) audits all Union and State accounts, is independent of the executive, and reports to Parliament through the President.

The Public Accounts Committee and Estimates Committee of Parliament examine audit reports and estimates; the Comptroller and Auditor General's reports go to the Public Accounts Committee.

Administrative law is the branch of public law governing the powers, procedures and liabilities of administrative authorities; its sources include the Constitution, statutes, delegated legislation, and judicial decisions.

Delegated legislation is law made by the executive under authority conferred by the legislature; it is controlled by parliamentary scrutiny committees and by judicial review.

Grounds of judicial review of administrative action: illegality (ultra vires), irrationality (Wednesbury unreasonableness), procedural impropriety, and proportionality.

Natural justice has two core rules: audi alteram partem (hear the other side) and nemo judex in causa sua (no one a judge in his own cause); the Indian Constitution does not name them but courts read them into Article 14 and Article 21.

Writ remedies under Articles 32 and 226: habeas corpus, mandamus, prohibition, certiorari and quo warranto.

Control over administration: legislative (questions, debates, committees, budget, no-confidence), executive (rules, inspections, inquiries), judicial (writs, judicial review), and extra-governmental (press, civil society, ombudsman).

The Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013 created an anti-corruption ombudsman at the Union and State levels; the Central Vigilance Commission (1964) is the apex vigilance body.

The Right to Information Act, 2005 makes disclosure the rule and secrecy the exception, and provides for Central and State Information Commissions.

New Public Administration emerged from the Minnowbrook Conference (1968) and is associated with Dwight Waldo; its themes are relevance, values, social equity, change and client orientation.

New Public Management (NPM) draws on public choice and managerialism: disaggregation, competition, performance contracts, outsourcing, user charges and 'steering rather than rowing'.

NPM instruments: executive agencies, performance-related pay, service charters, contracting out, public-private partnerships, and accrual accounting.

Good governance, as used by the UNDP and World Bank, rests on participation, rule of law, transparency, responsiveness, consensus orientation, equity, effectiveness and efficiency, accountability, and strategic vision.

In India good governance is pursued through e-governance (Digital India), the Right to Information, citizen's charters, social audit, and the Sevottam framework for service delivery.

Critiques of NPM include fragmentation, loss of accountability, hollowing out of the state, and neglect of equity; 'New Public Service' and 'public value' theory (Moore) respond to these.

The Second Administrative Reforms Commission (2005-09) recommended reforms on ethics, RTI, local governance, crisis management and e-governance.

Social audit is a tool of accountability in which citizens verify records of public programmes, notably under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.

Public policy is a purposive course of action followed by government; the policy cycle runs through agenda-setting, formulation, adoption, implementation, and evaluation.

Models of policy-making: rational-comprehensive, incremental (Lindblom), mixed scanning (Etzioni), garbage-can (Cohen, March, Olsen), and elite/mass and group models.

Implementation is analysed through top-down (pressman and Wildavsky) and bottom-up (Lipsky's street-level bureaucracy) perspectives.

Planning in India: the Planning Commission was set up in 1950 by a Cabinet resolution; the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog) replaced it on 1 January 2015.

India's Five Year Plans ran from the First Plan (1951-56) to the Twelfth Plan (2012-17); the First Plan focused on agriculture; the Second on industry.

Development administration (Gant, Riggs, Edward Weidner) is concerned with the administration of development programmes and with building administrative capability for change.

NITI Aayog is a policy think tank: it prepares strategy documents, promotes cooperative and competitive federalism, and monitors schemes such as Aspirational Districts.

Policy evaluation instruments include performance audits by the Comptroller and Auditor General, outcome budgeting, third-party evaluation and social audit.

Balwant Rai Mehta Committee (1957) recommended a three-tier Panchayati Raj system: Gram Panchayat, Panchayat Samiti and Zila Parishad.

Ashok Mehta Committee (1978) recommended a two-tier system and was the first to recommend constitutional status for Panchayats.

The 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act, 1992 inserted Part IX (Articles 243 to 243-O) and the Eleventh Schedule with 29 subjects; it came into force on 24 April 1993.

Mandatory features of the 73rd Amendment: three tiers (States with population below 20 lakh may not have the intermediate tier), five-year term, elections within six months of dissolution, State Election Commission (Article 243K) and State Finance Commission (Article 243-I).

Reservation: seats for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in proportion to population, and not less than one-third of seats for women; many States, including Rajasthan, have raised the women's reservation to 50 per cent.

Gram Sabha (Article 243A) consists of all persons registered in the electoral rolls of a village; it is the foundation of the Panchayati Raj system.

Rajasthan pioneered Panchayati Raj: the system was inaugurated at Nagaur on 2 October 1959 by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, making Rajasthan the first State to implement it.

Rajasthan's Panchayati Raj Act is the Rajasthan Panchayati Raj Act, 1994; the State Election Commission and the State Finance Commission are its constitutional watchdogs.

Urban local bodies under the 74th Amendment (Part IXA, Articles 243-P to 243-ZG, Twelfth Schedule with 18 subjects) include Municipal Corporations, Municipal Councils and Nagar Panchayats.