IAS Mains Previous Years Paper : Public Administration (1992)

PAPER - I
SECTION A
1. Comment on any three of the following in not more than 200 words each:
(a) ‘Taylor’s Scientific Management had a major influence on the growing reform and economy movements in Public Administration.’ 
(b) ‘Decentralization has a more important justification than more administrative efficiency.’ 
(c) ‘Simon explains that decision-making basically involves choice between alternative plans of action and choice in turn, involves facts and values.’
(d) ‘Bureaucracy thrives, under the cloak of ministerial responsibility in a parliamentary democracy.’

2. Evaluate the contributions of George Elton Mayo to Administrative organization. Do you consider his contributions as great innovations of modem times?
3. (a) ‘The Departmental pattern of undertaking does not offer the necessary, autonomy, flexibility and entrepreneurship to Management’ Examine.
(b) ‘It is difficult to state any demarcating principle to differentiate between Line and Staff functions of agencies.’ Discuss.

4. Differentiate between the open and closed career systems. Do you favour the coexistence of both the systems for a balanced career development?

SECTION B
5. Comment on any three of the following in not more than 200 words each:
(a) ‘Financial administration is a vital institution ‘for economic and social change in a poor country.’
(b) It would be fatal for administration if the public functionaries indulge in procrastination, betray inaction, or more in circles simply because the demand for accountability has overawed and benumbed them.
(c) ‘Administrative reform, by its very definition, seeks to apply new ideas to administration and thus entails new values.
(d) ‘Rule of law is the base of India’s constitutional life, and administrative law seeks to ensure that this basic premise remains upheld and protected.’

6. What is performance budgeting? Do you agree with the statement that it is a tool of business management?

7. (a) ‘Riggs approach and models may be considered as more sophisticated tools for describing and diagnosing administrative situations.’ Disucss.
(b) ‘Policy-making is a series of continuing dynamic processes which are plural and composite.’ Explain.

8. ‘Increased legislative delegation should be considered as a phenomenon of the modern positive state.’ Discuss.

PAPER - II
SECTION A
1. Comment upon any three of the following in not more than 200 words each:
(a) ‘The Indian Constitution provides a mere environmental setting for our politics and administration but the state of conflict arises from the mass base and the  elitist orientations of the two respectively.’
(b) ‘Lord Ripon was the prophet of local government in India.’
(c) ‘The jurisdictions of Planning Commission and Finance Commission overlap and together the two circumscribe the Sovereign character of Indian Parliament.’
(d) ‘The office of collector created by the British forms the basis of district administration in India, but today it needs a new look to metamorphose itself into a Key office of District Government.

2. Examine the comparative roles of the Cabinet Secretariat and the Prime Minister’s Secretariat in the functioning of the Union and the Governments in India. Illustrate your answer.

3. (a) ‘With the fall of the Soviet System, the fervour socialist administration has declined. Examine the statement in the light of recent policy decisions in the Government of India with regard to public undertakings.
(b) ‘Reservation Policy in Public Services as a mandate from the Constitution has been conducive to the promotion of Social Justice.’ Discuss and illustrate.

4. Write a critical essay on ‘The Dilemmas of Police Administration in a Plural Society.’

SECTION B
5. Comment upon any three of the following in not more than 200 words each:
(a) ‘The National Development Council should be grafted as a Federal Economic Cabinet of the Prime Minister in the East Minister model of Indian democracy.’
(b) ‘The State Governments now have little alternative but to accept autonomy, innovation and political directions by representative bodies in Urban Local Government.’
(c) ‘Planning in a federal system, needs to depoliticize.’
(d) ‘Public Accounts Committee of Parliament t is the real watch dog of the financer of Union Government.’

6. Outline the organization and working of the Ministry of Home Affairs in the Government of India and examine its role in the event of breakdown of constitutional machinery in a state.

7. (a) Peoples participation in administration is a democratic rhetoric, which when translated into action, tends to become mere redressed of citizen’s grievances.’ Discuss.
(b) ‘The recruitment of recruiters in the Public Service Commissions of India needs streamlining.’ Examine the

8. Examine some of the Challenges to Development Administration in the Panchayati democracy of rural India. Do you think that the Constitutionalisation of three-tier Federalism will be a viable model for future?