Haryana: Polity and Administration

What the official syllabus says

HCS Preliminary Examination, Paper I: General Studies:

Indian Culture, Indian Polity and Indian Economy.

Questions on Indian Polity and Economy will test knowledge on the country's political system and Constitution of India. Panchayati Raj, social systems and economic developments in India.

Haryana-Economy and people. Social, economic and culture institutions and language of Haryana.

The polity part of the paper names Panchayati Raj, and the Haryana line names the state's institutions. This page puts the state's own system of government in one place.

Topics in detail

The state and its government

• Formation of Haryana on 1 November 1966 under the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966; Chandigarh as the shared capital
• The Governor: appointment, powers and the Raj Bhavan
• The Chief Minister and the Council of Ministers; the 15 per cent ceiling on its size (91st Amendment)
• The Haryana Vidhan Sabha: a unicameral legislature of 90 members; reserved seats; Speaker and committees
• Haryana in Parliament: 10 Lok Sabha seats and 5 Rajya Sabha seats

Judiciary

• The Punjab and Haryana High Court at Chandigarh, common to both states and Chandigarh
• District and sessions courts; Lok Adalats and the State Legal Services Authority

The administrative structure

• The secretariat: Chief Secretary, administrative secretaries, Financial Commissioner (Revenue)
• Divisions under Divisional Commissioners; districts under Deputy Commissioners
• Sub-divisions (SDM), tehsils and sub-tehsils (Tehsildar and Naib Tehsildar), development blocks (BDPO)
• Land revenue administration: patwari and kanungo, jamabandi, mutation, girdawari
• Police: the Director General of Police, ranges and districts, the police commissionerate system in some cities
• The posts filled through this examination under Advertisement No. 22/2026 (HCS (Executive Branch), DSP, ETO, DFSC, ARCS, DFSO, AETO, Traffic Manager, 'A' Class Tehsildar (Apprentice) and 'A' Class Naib Tehsildar (Apprentice)) and the departments they serve

Panchayati Raj in Haryana

• The Haryana Panchayati Raj Act, 1994: Gram Sabha, Gram Panchayat (Sarpanch and Panches), Panchayat Samiti (block) and Zila Parishad (district)
• Powers, functions and finances of panchayats; the State Finance Commission
• Reservation for Scheduled Castes, backward classes and women, including half of the seats for women
• Minimum educational qualifications for panchayat candidates, upheld by the Supreme Court in Rajbala v. State of Haryana (2015)
• The State Election Commission and panchayat elections

Urban local government and development

• The Haryana Municipal Act, 1973 (municipal committees and councils) and the Haryana Municipal Corporation Act, 1994
• Municipal corporations of the state
• Development authorities: Haryana Shehri Vikas Pradhikaran (formerly HUDA) and metropolitan development authorities

State commissions and accountability bodies

• The Haryana Public Service Commission (Articles 315-323) and the Haryana Staff Selection Commission
• Haryana Lokayukta (Haryana Lokayukta Act, 2002)
• State Information Commission under the Right to Information Act, 2005
• The Haryana Right to Service Act, 2014 and its commission
• State Human Rights Commission, State Commission for Women, State Commission for Protection of Child Rights

Governance and inter-state issues

• E-governance and service delivery: online service portals, grievance redressal systems, the family database for welfare
• Centre-state and inter-state issues: Chandigarh, the Sutlej-Yamuna Link canal, Ravi-Beas and Yamuna waters, the Bhakra Beas Management Board
• Haryana in the Northern Zonal Council and the National Capital Region Planning Board

Overlaps

• Polity, governance and "related issues of Haryana" are asked in essay form in Mains General Studies II.
• The constitutional framework is on Indian Polity and the Constitution.