Which of the following statements on the functioning of a local urban…

Under India's local self-government framework, the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment Acts of 1992 set up two separate structures. In rural areas, Panchayati Raj Institutions are headed at the village level by an elected Sarpanch. In urban areas, a municipal corporation or council has an elected wing (a Mayor and ward councillors/corporators, who form and pass policy including the budget) and a separate appointed executive wing (the Municipal Commissioner, a state-appointed administrative officer who implements the elected council's decisions). The 74th Amendment also provides for Ward Committees, formed by the elected ward councillors, to handle governance matters at the ward level.

Applying this to the four statements: a corporation's budget is prepared or proposed by the Commissioner's administration but must still be debated and passed by the elected council, so final budget-making power rests with the council, not the Commissioner alone; the Commissioner's post is filled by state government appointment rather than election by councillors; and the Sarpanch belongs to the rural Panchayati Raj structure, not to urban ward administration, whose elected political head is instead the Mayor.

Checking each statement against this structure:

• Treating the Commissioner as having sole budget-making power confuses the administrative/executive wing with the elected wing that holds the power of financial approval.

• Describing the Commissioner as elected by, and reporting to, the councillors reverses the actual relationship — the Commissioner is a state-government appointee who runs the executive machinery, not an elected officer answerable to the council in that manner.

• Placing a Sarpanch at the head of ward councillors mixes up two different tiers of local government — the Sarpanch heads a village Gram Panchayat under the rural framework, while an urban corporation’s elected political head is instead the Mayor.

Ward councillors constituting committees to handle governance issues is the arrangement consistent with the 74th Amendment structure for urban local bodies, unlike the other three statements checked above.