In a hill village of Pauri, waste from a stone-crushing unit began to choke the stream from which the villagers drew their water. A group of residents took the matter to the courts, which ordered the unit to stop the dumping. Soon after, the panchayat chosen in the village polls took up a new task. It decided how the stream, the common grazing land and the forest produce of the village would be used and shared, instead of waiting for orders from the district office.
Which change gave elected panchayats like the one in the passage the power to take up this new task?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → The 73rd Constitutional Amendment
Option (1) The Supreme Court's widened reading of Article 21 — Incorrect. The widened reading of Article 21 lets citizens go to court for a clean environment, as the residents did here. A court order can stop the dumping, but it gives no power over village resources to the panchayat.
Option (2) Gandhiji's ideal of gram-swarajya for villages — Incorrect. Gram-swarajya was Gandhiji's ideal of each village as a self-sufficient unit. It remained an ideal and gave panchayats no legal power until the 1992 change.
Option (3) The 73rd Constitutional Amendment — Correct. The 73rd Constitutional Amendment of 1992 gave panchayats constitutional status and placed control of local resources with the elected local bodies. Deciding how the stream, grazing land and forest produce are shared is this control at work.
Option (4) The District Planning Committees in the districts — Incorrect. District Planning Committees were set up by the 73rd Amendment to prepare plans for the district as a whole. They work at district level and do not hand village resources to a panchayat.
NCERT (2026-27): “Ideals of Panchayati Raj … |