NCERT Solutions Exploring Society: India and Beyond Chapter 6 Executive accountability — LET’S EXPLORE
Book page 150 Updated on2026-09-05
Q1.
Who is reporting to whom?
Answer
The Ministry is reporting to the Committee, and the Committee is reporting to Parliament. Read the extract in two directions:
The Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare — a committee of MPs — had made a recommendation. The Ministry (here, the Ministry of Ayush, under the Health and Family Welfare group of ministries) has had to come back and state, under the heading ‘Action Taken’, exactly what it did about that recommendation. So the executive is reporting to the legislature.
The Committee then puts the recommendation and the reply together in a report — the extract is from the One Hundred Sixty Second Report — which is laid on the Table of the Rajya Sabha (20 December 2024) and of the Lok Sabha (February 2025). So the Committee is reporting to both Houses of Parliament, and through them to the public.
Why this is the chapter’s point: the Question Hour is the loud, visible form of executive accountability. This document is the quiet form. Every recommendation gets a written reply that anyone can read months later — which is much harder for a ministry to dodge than a single spoken answer. Notice too that these committees may include MPs from different political parties, so the scrutiny does not stop when the government changes.
Q2.
What is the subject that has been reviewed?
Answer
The subject is item 1.2 — “Co-location of Ayush facilities at Primary Health Centers (PHCs), Community Health Centers (CHCs) and District Hospitals (DHs)”.
In plain words: whether Ayush services (the traditional systems of medicine) are being provided alongside the regular services at the three levels of the public health system — the primary health centre in a rural area, the community health centre above it, and the district hospital. Within this, the specific matter reviewed is whether the states and union territories have set up a separate Department of Ayush to run and expand this work.
Tip: when you read any committee extract, look for the numbered heading first (here 1.2). The paragraph numbers that follow — 1.2.1 for the recommendation, 1.2.2 for the reply — tell you that everything under them belongs to that one subject.
Q3.
Identify the Committee’s recommendation.
Answer
The Committee’s recommendation is in paragraph 1.2.1:
It notices that in some states and UTs a separate Department of Ayush has not been opened. Therefore, to boost the Ayush system and for better coordination in Ayush healthcare, it recommends that the Ministry of Ayush should impress upon and persuade those States and UTs to create such a department, so that the Ayush sector and its schemes can be developed and implemented speedily. (The Committee cites Para 2.13 of its own earlier report.)
Note the verb the Committee chooses: “impress upon and persuade”, not “direct”. A parliamentary committee recommends; it does not command. That single word already anticipates the constitutional problem the Ministry raises in its reply.
Q4.
What is the government’s reply?
Answer
The government’s reply is in paragraph 1.2.2, under ‘Action Taken’. It has three parts:
A constitutional limit. “Public Health” is a state subject, so creating a separate Department of Ayush comes under the purview of the respective State/UT Governments — the Union Ministry cannot simply order it.
What it did within that limit. The Ministry of Ayush has requested State/UT Governments in different meetings to create separate Directorates and to deploy manpower in the SPMU (state project management unit) and DPMU (district project management unit), for speedy development and implementation of the NAM (National Ayush Mission) scheme.
The result so far. As on date, a separate Ayush Directorate is available in 24 States/UTs.
What this exchange teaches about federalism: the Committee wanted something done; the Ministry agreed with the aim but explained that the power to do it lies with the states, and reported the persuasion it had used instead. That is federalism working as the chapter describes it — power distributed between the centre and the states — and accountability working too, because the Ministry had to put the number 24 on the record, where the Committee and the public can measure the next report against it.