NCERT Class 6 Social Science Chapter 11 PDF – Grassroots Democracy – Part 2 Local Government in Rural Areas (2026-27)

Download Grassroots Democracy – Part 2 Local Government in Rural Areas – NCERT Class 6 Social Science Chapter 11 PDF from the new NCERT Class 6 Social Science book Exploring Society: India and Beyond (2026-27). Read the chapter online or download the free PDF. The chapter’s one idea: the government nearest to a village should be run by the villagers themselves. Lakshmanpur, a small village in the Himalayan foothills, has 200 houses and about 700 people. Its needs — water for the fields, a road washed away…

Grassroots Democracy – Part 2 Local Government in Rural Areas PDF – Chapter 11 of Exploring Society: India and Beyond

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NCERT Book Class 6 Social Science (Exploring Society India and Beyond) Chapter 11 Grassroots Democracy - Part 2 Local Government in Rural Areas Open PDF

What Is in Grassroots Democracy – Part 2 Local Government in Rural Areas? (Class 6 Social Science Chapter 11)

• The chapter’s one idea: the government nearest to a village should be run by the villagers themselves. Lakshmanpur, a small village in the Himalayan foothills, has 200 houses and about 700 people. Its needs — water for the fields, a road washed away by rain, the primary school, a land dispute — are all local. Nobody can “run to the State or the national capital for every such issue”. So India has a system of local government called the Panchayat, “which refers to a village council”.
• Panchayati Raj is a form of self-government. Panchayats “bring governance closer to the people, making it possible for them to actively participate in decision-making processes”. They address local issues, promote development, and make sure “that the benefits of government schemes reach the grassroots level”.
• It works at three levels — a ‘three-tier system’. Fig. 11.1 on page 164 draws it as a pyramid, from bottom up: the village level (Gram Panchayat / Village Parishad), the block level (Panchayat Samiti / Block Panchayat / Mandal Parishad) and the district level (Zila Parishad / District Panchayat). Together their responsibilities “cover almost all aspects of life in the district” — agriculture, housing, roads, water resources, education, health care, social welfare and cultural activities.
• The Gram Sabha is the base of everything. It is “a group of adults from a village (or group of neighbouring villages) who are enrolled as voters”. Nobody elects the Gram Sabha — every registered adult voter of the village is already a member. In it “women and men discuss all matters related to their area and take decisions”, and it directly elects the members of the Gram Panchayat. Each Gram Panchayat has a head called the Sarpanch or Pradhan, and “in recent years, more and more women have become Sarpanchs”.
• Panchayats are helped by officials, and they listen to children too. A Panchayat Secretary calls meetings and maintains records; a Patwari keeps the villagers’ land records, sometimes with maps “generations old”. Under the Child-Friendly Panchayat Initiative, Bal Sabhas and Bal Panchayats let children speak — Maharashtra’s Bal Panchayats worked against child labour and child marriage, Sikkim’s Sangkhu Radhu Khandu Gram Panchayat built school compound walls and kitchens, and Rajasthan’s ‘Children’s Parliament’ won the World’s Children’s Honorary Award in 2001.
• Above the village: the Panchayat Samiti and the Zila Parishad. The Panchayat Samiti at the block level “is the link between the Gram Panchayat and the Zila Parishad at the district level”. Members are elected by local people, but there may be other members “like Sarpanchs of the villages in the area and local members of the State Legislative Assembly”. Samitis collect the development plans of all Gram Panchayats and present them at the district or State level — which “facilitates the allotment of funds”, for example under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana for all-weather rural roads.
• Special rules protect those who are usually left out. At all three levels there are rules so that “disadvantaged sections of the population can make their needs and problems heard”, and “a provision for reserving one-third of the seats for women”. Structures differ a little from State to State, because the States have authority over these institutions — but the objective is the same everywhere: to let villagers take an active part in managing and developing their own area. The chapter closes with Kauṭilya’s Arthaśhāstra, which planned a village-to-capital administrative ladder some 2,300 years ago.

Quick revision – Grassroots Democracy – Part 2 Local Government in Rural Areas

Old NCERT vs New – Class 6 Social Science

This chapter is from Exploring Society: India and Beyond, the new NCERT Class 6 Social Science book (NCF-SE 2023, used from 2024-25). It replaced the old book “Our Pasts, The Earth Our Habitat and Social and Political Life”, so chapter numbers and names differ from older PDFs.

Solutions and All Chapters

Answers to the exercises and the full chapter list of Exploring Society: India and Beyond:

Grassroots Democracy – Part 2 Local Government in Rural Areas – Overview

Class 6 Social Science Chapter 11 – FAQs