Administrative System of Rajasthan - West Bengal PCS Exam Notes

Administrative System of Rajasthan

Rajasthan is divided into 33 districts for administrative purposes. The responsibilities of district management are carried out by a number of All-India officials and a number of state-appointed officials.
The All-India officials in each district are a District Collector or District Magistrate (from the Indian Administrative Service), a Superintendent of Police (from the Indian Police Service) and a Deputy Conservator of Forests (from the Indian Forest Service), each of which is assisted by officers of various Rajasthan state services.
The state-appointed officials are responsible for matters such as health, education, and agriculture in each district.
The Constitution has divided the country‘s administration into two spheres, administration of the Union, that is, national and of the States.
The Union administration looks after the subjects in list 1 of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution and the States administer the subjects enumerated in list 2.
List 3 is the Concurrent list of subjects on which both the Union and the States are competent to legislate and, so, to administer, but a Union law takes precedence over a State law on a matter in this list.
The administration of the Rajasthan State covers the matters which are easier to tackle from a closer aloofness and those which conduce in better way to the welfare and development of the people. Police, jails land tenure and revenue, public works (except national, that is, inter-state highways, and river valleys, etc.), local government, etc., are examples of the former. Agriculture and animal husbandry, Health and medicine, social welfare, are illustration of the latter.
The Rajasthan State administer (that is, levy,- collect and use) the taxes on agricultural income, estate and succession duties in respect of agricultural land, taxes on land and structures, electricity duties, vehicle and profession taxes, etc. Some of these, for instance, octroi, property tax, etc., are given over to the local bodies for levy collection and use through the State governments through legislation.
The common subjects in the Concurrent list enable both the Union and the Rajasthan State to legislate and administer matters of special and economic significance and of legal nature implying concern to both economic and social planning, transfer of property and contracts relating to other than agricultural land, population control and family planning, trade unions and industrial labour, employment and unemployment, etc. Civil and criminal laws are of concern to both, hence, are vested in both the administrations. Education and forests and protection of wild life and birds have been recently transferred from the State to the Concurrent list due to rising Rational concern in them.

POWERS OF THE RAJASTHAN STATE GOVERNMENTS

The Union government and state governments derive their powers directly from the Constitution. The Constitution has adopted a three-fold sharing of legislative powers flanked by the Union and the states (Article 246).
Schedule VII of the Constitution enumerates the subjects into three lists. List I or the Union List consists of the subjects over which the Union has exclusive powers of legislation.
Likewise, List II or the State List comprises subjects over which the state has exclusive powers of legislation.
There is yet another List (List III) recognized as the Concurrent List that comprises subjects over which both the Union and states have powers to legislate. The residual powers are vested in the Union.

ROLE OF THE GOVERNOR

Our Constitution gives for the Parliamentary form of government at the Union as well as the state stages.
The Governor is the Constitutional head of the state and acts on the advice of the Council of Ministers headed through the Chief Minister. He is appointed through the President for a term of five years and holds office throughout his pleasure.
He can be reappointed after his tenure as Governor of the same state or of another state.
According to the Constitution, the Governor has several executive, legislative, judicial and emergency powers.
For instance, the Governor appoints the Chief Minister and on his advice the Council of Ministers. He creates several other appointments like those of members of the State Public Service Commission, Advocate General, Senior Civil Servant, etc.
In fact, the whole executive work of the state is accepted on in his name. The Governor is a part of the State Legislature. He has a right of addressing and sending messages to and of summoning, proroguing the State Legislature and dissolving the Lower House.
All the bills passed through the Legislature have to be assented to through him before becoming the law. He can withhold his assent to the Bill passed through the Legislature and send it back for reconsideration. If it is again passed with or without modification, the Governor has to provide his assent. He may also reserve any Bill passed through the State Legislature for the assent of the President.
The Governor may also issue an Ordinance when the legislature is not in session. The Governor even has the power to grant pardon, reprieve, respite, remission of punishment or to suspend, remit or commute the sentence of any person convicted of any offence against any law related to a matter to which the executive power of the state extends.
As far as the emergency powers of the Governor are concerned, whenever the Governor is satisfied that a situation has arisen in his state whereby the administration of the state cannot be accepted on in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution, he can report the fact to the President.
On receipt of such a report, the President may assume to himself the powers of the state government and may reserve for the Parliament the powers of the State Legislature (Article 356).

Powers and Functions of the Council of Ministers

The Council of Ministers is the highest policy-creation body of the Rajasthan state government. It lays down policy in respect to all matters within the legislative and administrative competence of the state government.
The Council also reviews the implementation of the policy laid down through it and can revise any policy in view of the feedback received throughout implementation.
Since the Governor has to exercise his executive powers on the advice of the Council of Ministers and all the executive power is exercised in the name of the Governor, there is no limitation on the powers of the Council except the following:

The limits imposed through the Constitution and the laws passed through the Union and State Legislature
Self-imposed limits to exclude consideration of less significant matters.

The following are the typical present-day secretariat departments in the State governments:

General Administration,
Home,
Revenue and Forests
Agriculture, Food and Cooperation,
Education and Social Welfare,
Urban Development and Public Health,
Finance,
Structures and Communication,
Irrigation and Power,
Law and Judiciary,
Industries and Labour,
Rural Development.

STATE SECRETARIAT: ORGANISATION AND FUNCTIONS MEANING OF SECRETARIAT

The three components of government at the state stage are:

The minister;
The secretary, and
The executive head.

The minister and the secretary together constitute the Secretariat, whereas the office of the executive head is designated as the Directorate.
Literally, the term Secretariat‘ means the secretary‘s office. It originated at a time when what we had in India was really a government run through the secretaries.
A power of governance passed bands of the popularly elected ministers and therefore the Ministry became the seat of authority.
In the changed political situation, the term Secretariat has become a synonym for the minister‘s office. But because the secretary is the principal adviser to the minister, he needs to be in the physical vicinity of the minister.
In effect, so, Secretariat refers to the complex of structures that houses the office of ministers and secretaries.
The expression Secretariat, it has been observed, is used to refer to the complex of departments whose heads politically are ministers and administratively are the secretaries.

POSITION AND ROLE OF STATE SECRETARIAT

The following extract from the Administrative Reforms Commission‘s Report on State Administration gives a succinct expression to the position and role of the State Secretariat.
The State Secretariat, as the top layer of the state administration, is primarily meant to assist the state government in policy creation and in discharging its legislative functions.
It also acts as a memory and a clearing house, preparatory to sure kinds of decisions and as a general supervisor of executive action.
The main functions of the State Secretariat are broadly as follows:
Assisting the ministers in policy creation, in modifying policies from time to time and in discharging their legislative responsibilities

Framing draft legislation, and rules and regulations
Coordinating policies and programmes, supervising and controlling their execution, and reviewing of the results
Budgeting and control of expenditure
Maintaining get in touch with the Government of India and other state governments; and
Overseeing the smooth and efficient running of the administrative machinery and initiating measures to develop greater personnel and organizational competence

PATTERNS OF RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE SECRETARIAT AND DIRECTORATES

Directorates

Directorates are the executive arm of the state government; they translate into action the policies that are framed through the State Secretariat.
Even though the conditions Directorates‘ and Executive Agencies‘ are often used interchangeably, Directorates are but one kind of executive agency.
Directorates are classified into two categories – Attached Offices and Subordinate Offices. This classification facilitates academic comprehension of the roles, which the two kinds perform in policy execution.

Local Administration

Because the Directorates are concerned with policy execution, and the execution of policy necessity necessarily take place in the field (i.e., at the district, block and village stages), the need arises for them (Directorates) to make intermediate stage administrative agencies to coordinate and supervise the field operations.
This intermediate stage administrative setup flanked by the state headquarters (Directorate) and the district is referred to as local administration‘.
A generic term, which is used to refer to local stage agencies (and those at district and lower stages). They could be described sub-statal agencies because they exist at stages below the state headquarters.
Each region comprises a sure number of districts. Therefore, a region is a real unit below the state stage and above the district stage.
As a rule, though not always, all executive departments at the state headquarters have local organisations; names which these local agencies carry, vary from department to department.

Divisional Commissioners

Divisional Commissioners, referred to above, are local agencies in respect of the states‘ revenue function.
Work of revenue administration at the state headquarters is entrusted not to a government department, but to an autonomous agency described the Board of Revenue.
So, Divisional Commissioners are but the local stage representatives of the Board of Revenue.

DISTRICT COLLECTOR

A District Collector, also referred to basically Collector, is the chief administrative and revenue officer of an Indian district.
The Collector is also referred to as the District Magistrate, Deputy Commissioner and, in some districts, as Deputy Development Commissioner.
A District Collector is a member of the Indian Administrative Service, and is appointed through the State government.
The district sustained to be the unit of administration after India gained independence in 1947.
The role of the District Collector remained largely unchanged, except for separation of mainly judicial powers to judicial officers of the district.
Later, with the promulgation of the National Extension Services and Community Development Programme through the Nehru government in 1952, the District Collector was entrusted with the additional responsibility of implementing the government’s development programs in the district.

DUTIES

The District Collector is entrusted with a wide range of duties in the jurisdiction of the district.
The area of land in a district also varies widely, from 45,652 km (larger than Denmark or Switzerland) to 9 km. While the actual extant of the responsibilities varies in each State, they usually involve:

As Collector:

Land assessment
Land acquisition
Collection of land revenue
Collection of income tax dues, excise duties, irrigation dues etc.
Sharing of agricultural loans

As District Magistrate:

Maintenance of law and order
Supervision of the police and jails
Supervision of subordinate executive magistracy
Hearing cases under the preventive section of the criminal procedure code
Supervision of jails and certification of execution of capital sentences

As Crisis Administrator

Disaster management throughout natural calamities such as floods,
famines or epidemics
Crisis management throughout riots or external aggression

As Development Officer

Ex-officio chairman of the District Rural Development Agency, which carries out several developmental activities
Chairman of the District Bankers Coordination Committee
Head of the District Industries Centre

He is assisted through the following officers for carrying out day to day work in several fields:–

Additional deputy commissioner
Assistant commissioner (general)
Assistant commissioner (grievances)
Executive magistrate
District revenue officer
District transport officer
District development and panchayat officer
Civil protection officer
Urban ceiling officer

POLICE ADMINISTRATION

The Indian Police Service, basically recognized as Indian Police or IPS, is one of the three All India Services civil services of the Government of India.
In 1948, a year after India gained independence from Britain, the Indian Police Services (IPS), also recognized as the Indian (Imperial) Police, was replaced through the Indian Police Service

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