Consider the following statements: In India, a Metropolitan Planning Committee 1) is constituted under the provisions of the Constitution of India. 2) prepares the draft development plans for metropolitan area. 3) has the sole responsibility for implementing Government sponsored schemes in the metropolitan area. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

The correct answer is A. Statements 1 and 2 are correct, and statement 3 is not.

• Statement 1 is correct. The Metropolitan Planning Committee is mandated by Article 243ZE in Part IXA, inserted by the 74th Constitutional Amendment (1992). It applies to metropolitan areas with a population of 10 lakh or more.
• Statement 2 is correct. Article 243ZE requires the MPC to prepare the draft development plan for the metropolitan area as a whole, which the municipalities and panchayats in the area then feed into.
• Statement 3 is wrong. The MPC is a coordinating and planning body. It does not have sole responsibility for implementing government-sponsored schemes. Implementation is spread across the state government, municipal bodies, parastatal agencies and other authorities.

The core concept is decentralised planning: the MPC integrates the plans of rural and urban local bodies so that metropolitan issues such as transport, water and waste are handled as one unit. For Mains GS-II, this links to the debate on the real powers of urban local bodies and the reluctance of states to constitute MPCs in the form the Constitution envisages.

Trap: candidates often treat any body with 'planning' in its name as an implementing agency, or assume that a constitutional provision guarantees the body actually functions. Read each statement for the exact function the Constitution assigns.