Name the Committee appointed in 1986 on revitalisation of Panchayati Raj…

Concept: After independence, the Government of India set up a series of committees to review and strengthen the three-tier Panchayati Raj system; each committee had a distinct mandate — structural design, administrative machinery, or democratic revitalisation — and their reports progressively fed into the 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act, 1992, which gave Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) constitutional status.

Application: In 1986, the Government constituted a committee headed by L. M. Singhvi, specifically titled to study “Revitalisation of Panchayati Raj Institutions for Democracy and Development.” It recommended constitutional recognition of PRIs, regular and timely elections, and constitutionally mandated devolution of powers and finances — recommendations that directly shaped the 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act, 1992.

Contrast — the other committees:

• Ashok Mehta Committee (1977) reviewed Panchayati Raj after its post-1960s decline and recommended a two-tier structure with the district as the pivotal unit — a different mandate, a decade before the 1986 report.

• G. V. K. Rao Committee (1985) examined administrative arrangements for rural development and poverty-alleviation programmes, describing the field administration as ‘grass without roots’ — an administrative-efficiency review, not the democracy-and-development revitalisation study.

• Balwant Rai Mehta Committee (1957) was the first panchayati raj committee, recommending the original three-tier structure — nearly three decades earlier than the 1986 mandate in question.

Hence, the committee appointed in 1986 on revitalisation of Panchayati Raj Institutions for democracy and development is the L. M. Singhvi Committee.