Consider the following statements about the provisions of the Village Development Committees of Maharashtra Gram Panchayat Act : a. The total number of members in a Village Development Committee shall not be less than seven and not more than seventeen. b. Not less than one-third of its members shall be from amongst the members of the Gram Panchayat. c. Not less than one-half of the members shall be women. d. The Deputy Sarpanch shall be its ex-officio chairman. e. Gram Sevak shall be its ex-officio member-secretary. Which of the statements given above are correct ?
This MPSC previous-year question is drawn from MPSC Subordinate Services Group B Pre 2021 (English). It belongs to the Indian Polity section under the topic Panchayati Raj and is reproduced here in English exactly as it appeared in the official Maharashtra Public Service Commission paper, along with the four options, the official Set A answer key and a compact explanation of why the correct option is correct.
Correct answer: B
Explanation
The verified pick here is Only b, c and e. The Goods and Services Tax was rolled out on 1 July 2017 under the 101st Constitutional Amendment (2016) and is governed by the GST Council under Article 279A. Read each statement independently and check it against a factual anchor (a date, a body, a percentage) before deciding — the option marked correct is the combination that survives the check. The examiner rewards precision on this item — every option is engineered to feel plausible, but only the marked one matches the exact wording of the source document.
Why this question matters
Questions of this type recur almost every year across MPSC Group B, Group C, PSI and Gazetted Civil Services prelims because indian polity carries a high, stable weightage in the syllabus. Practising the original paper wording — rather than paraphrased mock questions — is the fastest way to internalise MPSC's option-framing style and the specific way its examiners plant trick choices.
How to attempt this in the exam
Approach this in three passes. First pass: eliminate any option that contains a factual howler you can spot in five seconds. Second pass: match the remaining options against the anchor in the question stem — the year, the article number, the place name, the scientist. Third pass: commit. On MPSC panchayati raj items, the wrong option that survives to the final two usually flips one attribute of the correct one.
Subject-specific tip
Tip for Polity: pin down the Article number, the year of the amendment and the body that performs the action. Most Polity questions can be solved by matching just those three anchors.
How Polity is tested — the recurring pillars
MPSC treats Polity as a memory-plus-application subject. The memory layer is the constitutional text itself: 12 schedules, 25 parts, roughly 448 articles, six categories of Fundamental Rights (Articles 14–32 after the 44th Amendment removed the Right to Property), the eleven Directive Principles clusters, and the ten Fundamental Duties. The application layer tests whether the aspirant can map a real-world situation to the correct article — for instance identifying that a public-interest litigation invokes Article 32 (Supreme Court) or Article 226 (High Court), or that the Governor's rule under Article 356 has a six-month renewability cap.
The bodies you must know cold include the Election Commission (Articles 324–329), the Comptroller and Auditor General (Articles 148–151), the Union and State Public Service Commissions (Articles 315–323), the Finance Commission (Article 280), the Attorney General (Article 76) and the National Commissions for SCs / STs / Women / OBCs / Minorities. MPSC frequently asks about their composition, tenure, appointment authority and reporting body — these four attributes are usually all you need to eliminate three of four options.
For Maharashtra state polity, the Governor, the Chief Minister, the Vidhan Sabha and Vidhan Parishad, and the state-level executive structure appear every year. Combine our Indian Polity study guide with the map layers that show Maharashtra's six revenue divisions and thirty-six districts to answer state-federalism questions confidently.
Source and editorial process
Source: MPSC Subordinate Services Group B Pre 2021 (English). This question, its four options and the marked correct answer are transcribed verbatim from the official Maharashtra Public Service Commission Set A paper. Our editorial team cross-checks each question against the original PDF released on mpsc.gov.in and against the corresponding official answer key.
We never paraphrase the wording. Where MPSC has issued a revised key after an objection round, the answer highlighted above reflects the revised key and the revision is logged in our internal change-log. If you spot a discrepancy, please email us at dontknowacademy@gmail.com — we acknowledge every report within 24 hours and push a fix within 48 hours.
Related study material
Deepen your preparation on this topic with our long-form MPSC study guides. Every guide is written specifically for the Maharashtra Public Service Commission preliminary syllabus and takes twelve to sixteen minutes to read in full.
- Indian Polity for MPSCConstitution, Fundamental Rights, DPSPs, Parliament, state government, key amendments.
- MPSC Exam PatternGroup B, Group C, PSI, Gazetted CS & TS prelims — marks, syllabus, negative marking, cut-offs.
- MPSC Preparation Strategy6-month plan, book list, daily routine, PYQ usage, mock-test strategy.
Practice the full subject
MPSC Subordinate Services Group B Pre 2021 (English)
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