State Government Notes 7th Social Science
7th Social Science Lesson 14 Notes in English
14. State Government
Assembly Building:
- It is a fort in Chennai. First English fortress in India.
- The fort currently houses the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly and Secretariat of Tamilnadu.
- Legislative Assembly has the lower house where all the MLAs meet to discuss various matters related to the welfare of the state.
Central Government:
- India is a Parliamentary democratic republic where the President of India is the Head of Indian Union and the Prime Minister and all the Ministers are responsible for smooth running of the government.
- This is called central government.
Members of State Government:
- All the states and union territories have separate governments to run its own administration.
- Governor, Chief Minister and all the ministers constitute the Government.
- The member of the Parliament is called MP whereas the member of the Legislative Assembly is called MLA.
- Both the Central and State Governments work according to our constitution.
MLA
- MLAs are not appointed. They are elected by the people through general election. In the previous lesson we have studied about the political parties.
- These political parties play a vital role in election.
- For election, the entire state is divided into several constituencies on the basis of the population.
- Political parties nominate their candidates to each constituency. All the people residing in that constituency who has completed 18 years of age cast their vote.
- The candidate who gets the more number of votes is declared as elected and becomes MLA. The Election Commission of India conducts and monitors the elections.
- After the election the party which gets the more number of MLAs is declared as the majority party.
- The Governor calls the leader of the majority party to form the state government.
- In simple words a party whose MLAs has won more than half the number of constituencies in the state are called ruling party and forms the government.
- And the party which gets the total number of seats next to the majority party, acts as an opposition party in the legislature.
- But all the MLAs of other political parties who do not belong to the ruling party are called opposition party.
7th Social Book Back Questions
Appointment by President:
- The Governor, the Chief Minister, Council of Ministers.
- The Governor is appointed by the president of India for the term of five years.
- The leader of the majority party is appointed as the Chief Minister by the Governor.
- The Chief minister in consultation with the Governor, constitutes a cabinet which includes members of his party as ministers.
- The term of the office is five years.
Qualification of Governor:
To become a Governor, you should be the citizen of India and should have completed 35 years of age and should have sound mind and should not hold any public office of profit.
Qualification of Chief Minister:
To become a Chief Minister, you should have completed 25 years of age and should be an MLA or in case of an MLC should have completed 30 years of age.
Two Houses of State Government:
- Usually a state Legislature has two houses. Upper House and Lower House.
- This is called Bi-cameral Legislature.
- Upper House is called Legislative Council.
- The members are called MLCs and they are not elected directly by the people.
- The Lower House is called Legislative Assembly.
- The members are called MLAs.
- As said earlier they are directly elected by the people. In India some of the states have two houses in their state legislature.
- But in Tamil Nadu we have Lower House only. This is called unicameral Legislature.
Functions of Governor:
- The Governor is an integral part of the State Legislature. Governor is the head of the state executive and he has enormous powers.
- All the administration is carried on in his name. He is the chancellor of Government universities in the state.
- All bills become law only after his assent.
- He appoints important officials of the state government such as advocate General, Chairman and members of State Public Service Commission, State Election Commissioner, Vice chancellors of state universities etc.
Functions of Chief Minister:
- The Chief Minister is the real executive head of the state administration. He allocates the portfolios among the ministers.
- The Council of Ministers are collectively responsible to the State Legislature.
- All the ministers work as a team under the Chief Minister.
- The Chief Minister formulates programmes and policies for the welfare of the people of the state.
- The council of Ministers is collectively responsible to the Legislative Assembly of the state.
Three organs of Government:
- The three main organs of government are the legislative, executive and judiciary.
- The legislative branch makes laws, the executive branch enforces the laws, and the judiciary interprets the laws.
Judiciary in State Government:
- The High courts are the highest judicial organ at the State level.
- It is an independent body. As per the constitution there shall be a High Court in each state.
- The state high court consists of a Chief Justice and other judges.
- The number of Judges in the high court is not uniform and fixed.
- President appoints the Chief Justice and can hold the office until he completes the age of 62 years.
- Apart from High court there are district courts and tribunals.
- They ensure justice to the people without any bias.
- Apart from this, Family Courts are established to settle the disputes relating to marriages and family affairs.
- Lok Adalat (people’s court) also have been established by the Government of India to settle dispute through conciliation and compromise.
