State governments in India

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State governments in India are the governments ruling States of India. Power is divided between central government and state governments. While central government handles Military, external affairs etc., the state government controls internal police security etc. Income for central govt. are through Customs duty, excise tax, income tax etc., while state govt income comes from sales tax(VAT), stamp duty etc.

Sarkaria Commission was set up to review power balance between states and the union. Central government can replace state government with President's rule if required. The state of Jammu and Kashmir has higher autonomy compared to other states by Article 370.

Legislature

State government's legislature is bicameral in 6 states and unicameral in the rest. Lower house is elected with 5 years term, while upper house if exists 1/3 of the members elected every 2 years with 6 year term.

The Indian constitution allows for states to have either a unicameral or bicameral legislature. A state is said to be unicameral if it has only one house of parliament. The numbers in the brackets indicate the number of seats in the lower and upper house respectively. Most of the newer states are unicameral and only a few of the older states (6 states out of 29) still remain bicameral. In a state with a bicameral legislature, the lower house is called the Legislative Assembly or Vidhan Sabha and the upper house is called the Legislative Council or Vidhan Parishad. By law, the upper house can not be more than 1/3 the total size of the lower house but must have more than 40 seats (except in the case of the state of Jammu and Kashmir which is allowed by special legislation to have less than 40 seats in its Legislative Council.)

The upper house, Vidhan Parishad has limited legislative powers, and was primarily intended for consultation and can not hold up legislation passed by the lower house, the Vidhan Sabha for more than a few months. The Legislative Assembly is composed of members directly elected from individual constituencies while the upper house, the Legislative Council consists of members indirectly elected by the Lower House, members nominated for by the State government, and members elected from specially designated teacher's and graduate's constituencies.

Andhra Pradesh abolished its upper house in 1984 but is now in the process of setting up a new Legislative Council. The legislation for this has already been passed by the Parliament of India and the state Legislative Assembly and Andhra Pradesh will have a bicameral legislature following elections in 2007.

Politics

Many regional parties and national parties are in power in states of India. Coaliation govt exists in some states.

Executive

Executive branch is headed by governor appointed by central govt. Chief minister and cabinet are also members. Cabinet size can be maximum of 15% the number of legislators in lower house, the law passed during Vajpayee's central government. Police hierarchy and various other ministries come under executive. District collector and Tahshildar are District and Tehsil heads respectively.

Judiciary

Judiciary has High court which has jurisdiction of the whole respective state.

See also

• List of Chief Ministers in India

References