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Polity · Scheduled & Tribal Areas (5th & 6th Schedules)

UPSC Prelims 2025, Question 56

The concept being tested: Fifth Schedule — Administration of Scheduled Areas (State executive authority).

Consider the following statements: With reference to the Constitution of India, if an area in a State is declared as Scheduled Area under the Fifth Schedule: I. the State Government loses its executive power in such areas and a local body assumes total administration. II. the Union Government can take over the total administration of such areas under certain circumstances on the recommendations of the Governor. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

Options

  1. AI only
  2. BII only
  3. CBoth I and II
  4. DNeither I nor IICorrect answer

The answer: Neither I nor II

The Fifth Schedule keeps administration of Scheduled Areas with the State Government itself; it does not transfer executive power to any local body. The Schedule only layers special safeguards on top of ordinary State administration: the Governor carries personal responsibility for the peace and good government of these areas, reports annually to the President, and under Paragraph 5 may direct that a particular Act of Parliament or the State Legislature will not apply there, or apply with modifications. The Tribes Advisory Council set up under Paragraph 4 only advises on tribal welfare — it has no administrative power. On the Union side, Article 339(2) lets the Union give the State directions for drawing up and executing Scheduled Tribe welfare schemes, a limited supervisory power, not a takeover of total administration, and it is not triggered by any Governor's recommendation. Both statements overstate these powers.

What UPSC was testing

UPSC is testing whether aspirants mistake the Governor's supervisory and reporting role, and the merely advisory Tribes Advisory Council, for an actual transfer of executive power, and whether they inflate Article 339(2)'s narrow 'directions on welfare schemes' power into a full Union takeover — the absolute framing of 'total administration' in both statements is the giveaway that they overreach.

How often this comes up

This concept has appeared 7 times in UPSC Prelims General Studies Paper I between 2015 and 2025 — in 2015, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025.

The option-by-option autopsy for this question — why each of the other three is wrong, and which neighbouring concept each one was built from — is in the app.