Balwantrai Mehta Committee was appointed mainly to study: (i) Community…

Concept

In Indian polity, the Balwant Rai Mehta Committee (constituted in 1957) was a study team set up to examine an existing set of rural development programmes and to recommend how they could be run more effectively. Its terms of reference were tied specifically to the two flagship rural-development schemes that the government had already launched in the early 1950s.

Application

Match each listed item against the committee's actual mandate:

• (i) Community Development Projects (the Community Development Programme, launched 1952) — YES, this was a core scheme the committee was asked to assess.

• (ii) National Extension Service (launched 1953) — YES, this was the second scheme the committee was asked to assess.

• (iii) Rural Co-operatives — NO, this was not part of the committee's terms of reference; co-operative credit was studied by other bodies.

• (iv) Rural bureaucracy — NO, the committee studied programme delivery, not the bureaucracy as a subject.

So the committee was appointed mainly to study items (i) and (ii).

Cross-check

The committee's central recommendation flowed directly from this mandate: because the Community Development Programme and the National Extension Service were failing for lack of popular participation, it recommended 'democratic decentralisation' — the three-tier Panchayati Raj structure (Gram Panchayat, Panchayat Samiti, Zila Parishad). This confirms its focus was these two programmes, not co-operatives or the bureaucracy.

Result: the correct combination is (i) and (ii).