Functions and Duties of the Union and State Governments

What the official syllabus says

GPSC Main Examination, Paper V: General Studies-II, (A) Indian Polity and Constitution:

• Functions and duties of the Indian Union and the State Governments.

Topics in detail

The Union executive

• President (Articles 52 to 62): election by an electoral college, qualifications, term, impeachment (Article 61)
• Powers of the President: executive, legislative (summoning, prorogation, dissolution, assent and veto), ordinance-making (Article 123), pardoning (Article 72), emergency powers
• Vice-President (Articles 63 to 71): election, role as ex officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha
• Prime Minister and Council of Ministers (Articles 74 and 75): aid and advice, collective responsibility to the Lok Sabha, individual responsibility
• Cabinet, cabinet committees, Cabinet Secretariat and the Prime Minister's Office
• Attorney General for India (Article 76)
• Ministries and departments; Allocation of Business Rules and Transaction of Business Rules

Parliament

• Composition of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha; qualifications and disqualifications of members
• Presiding officers: Speaker, Deputy Speaker, Chairman, Deputy Chairman
• Legislative procedure: ordinary bills, money bills (Article 110), financial bills, joint sitting (Article 108)
• Budget process: annual financial statement (Article 112), appropriation and finance bills, cut motions, vote on account
• Devices of parliamentary control: question hour, zero hour, calling attention, adjournment and no-confidence motions
• Parliamentary committees: Public Accounts, Estimates, Committee on Public Undertakings, departmentally related standing committees
• Parliamentary privileges (Article 105) and the anti-defection law (Tenth Schedule)

State government

• Governor (Articles 153 to 162): appointment, term, discretionary powers, reservation of bills for the President (Article 200), ordinance-making (Article 213), pardoning (Article 161)
• Chief Minister and the State Council of Ministers (Articles 163 and 164)
• Advocate General of the State (Article 165)
• State Legislature (Articles 168 to 212): unicameral and bicameral legislatures; creation or abolition of a Legislative Council (Article 169)
• State secretariat, Chief Secretary, departments, heads of departments and directorates
• District administration: Collector and District Magistrate, district police, line departments

Duties of the governments under the Constitution

• Directive Principles as fundamental in governance (Article 37): welfare State, adequate livelihood, equal pay, living wage, public health, free legal aid (Article 39A), village panchayats (Article 40), protection of environment (Article 48A)
• Duty of the Union to protect States against external aggression and internal disturbance (Article 355)
• Duty of States to comply with Union laws and of the Union to give directions (Articles 256 and 257)
• Welfare of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and weaker sections (Article 46); Fifth and Sixth Schedules
• Instruction in mother tongue at primary stage (Article 350A)

Union Territories

• Administration of Union Territories through an administrator appointed by the President (Article 239)
• Delhi (Article 239AA) and Puducherry: legislatures and councils of ministers
• Union Territories next to Gujarat: Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, merged into one Union Territory in 2020

Issues to think about

• Delay by Governors in acting on bills and the debate about time limits
• Use of ordinances in place of legislation
• Declining sittings of legislatures and scrutiny of bills by committees
• Coalition governments and the working of collective responsibility

Overlaps

The working of Gujarat's own government, legislature and High Court is on Gujarat: State Government, Legislature and High Court.