With the summer heat being exceptionally severe this year, the district has been facing severe water shortage. The District Collector has been mobilising his subordinate officials to conserve the remaining water reserves to prevent the district from plunging into an acute drinking water crisis. Along with an awareness campaign for conserving water, strict measures have been taken for stopping the over-exploitation of ground-water. Vigilance teams have been deployed to tour the villages and find the farmers who are drawing water from deep borewells or from the river reservoir for irrigation. The farmers are agitated by such action. A delegation of farmers meets the District Collector with their issues and complains that while they are not being allowed to irrigate their crops, big industries located near the river are drawing huge amounts of water through deep borewells for their industrial processes. The farmers allege that their administration is anti-farmer and corrupt, being bribed by the industry. The district needs to placate the farmers as they are threatening to go on a prolonged protest. At the same time, the District Collector has to deal with the water crisis. The industry cannot be closed as this would result in a large number of workers being unemployed.(a) Discuss all options available to the District Collector as a District Magistrate.(b) What suitable actions can be taken in view of mutually compatible interests of the stakeholders?(c) What are the potential administrative and ethical dilemmas for the District Collector?
What the examiner wants
In this Water-Scarcity Administration Case case (With the summer heat being exceptionally severe this year, the district has been facing severe water…), separate facts/constraints from the value conflict and resolve the explicit asks in order: Discuss all options available to the District Collector as a District Magistrate.; then What suitable actions can be taken in view of mutually compatible interests of the…; then What are the potential administrative and ethical dilemmas for the District Collector. Defend the preferred option against realistic alternatives.
Demand-wise check
- 1Discuss all options available to the District Collector as a District Magistrate≈65 words
- 2What suitable actions can be taken in view of mutually compatible interests of the stakeholders?≈65 words
- 3What are the potential administrative and ethical dilemmas for the District Collector?≈65 words
Open in about 30 words and close in about 30.
Answer plan
Where marks usually go
- Over-writing ‘Discuss all options available to the District Collector as a District Magistrate.’ while reducing ‘What suitable actions can be taken in view of mutually compatible interests of the…’ to a token paragraph
- Naming values without testing each feasible option for legality, affected stakeholders, consequences, implementation risk and reversibility
Value addition
- Water-Scarcity Administration Case: stakeholder map beside a 4-column option matrix — option | legality/ethics | consequences | mitigation
→ Draw it in the body, next to the point it supports.
Verified value additions
These are verified official-source additions selected for this exact PYQ. Use only the point that strengthens your argument.
Next: plan for one minute, write it in 14 minutes, then get it checked.