UPSC Mains 2017 GS4 Q13 — Administrative Accountability
A building permitted for three floors, while being extended illegally to 6 floors by a builder, collapses. As a consequence, a number of innocent labourers including women and children died. These labourers are migrants of different places. The government immediately announced cash relief to the aggrieved families and arrested the builder. Give reasons for such incidents taking place across the country. Suggest measures to prevent their occurrence. (250 words)
Question Decoded — examiner's intent
- Directive verbs
- Give reasonsSuggest measures
- Scope keywords
- building permitted for three floorsextended illegally to 6 floorsinnocent labourers including women and childrenmigrantscash reliefarrested the builder
- Implicit sub-parts
- Analysis of the structural/systemic nexus between builders, local municipal officials, and politicians.
- The ethical failure of the 'relief-and-arrest' model as a reactive rather than proactive governance tool.
- Socio-economic vulnerability of migrant workers that forces them into unsafe working/living conditions.
- Lack of accountability in enforcing the National Building Code and urban bylaws.
- Common pitfalls
- Focusing too much on the 'emotions' of the tragedy rather than the 'ethics' of administrative failure.
- Treating it as a disaster management question instead of an ethics and governance (GS4) question.
- Suggesting only legal measures while ignoring the need for moral responsibility and integrity in public service.
- Overlooking the specific plight of 'migrant' workers and child labor mentioned in the prompt.
- Dimensions required
- Administrative IntegrityLegal-Regulatory FrameworkSocio-Economic EthicsProfessional Ethics of Builders/EngineersAccountability and Transparency
- Marks allocation hint
Allocate approximately 100 words to identifying the multi-layered reasons, focusing on the nexus of corruption and lack of oversight. Use the remaining 150 words for measures, ensuring a balance between institutional reforms (IT-enabled monitoring), social protection for migrants, and the imposition of personal accountability on inspecting officials.
Unlock the full analysis for this question
You've seen the question and its examiner-intent decoding. Subscribers also get:
- 🔗 Similar Previous Year Questions — cross-year, cross-paper matches so you study the topic, not the question
- 📚 Source Map — verified citations from Laxmikanth, NCERT, PRS, Yojana, Economic Survey, Spectrum
- 🌱 How this topic is evolving — current-affairs bridge anchored to live TARS news clustering
- 🧭 Examiner's Pattern — how the topic has been framed across every year UPSC has tested it
- ✍️ Answer Skeleton — a structured outline (intro → body → conclusion) you can flesh out
- 🎯 AI evaluation — write your answer, get rubric-based scoring from gs-eval
Or browse 132+ free preview questions across all years and papers — the first 3 questions of every paper are unlocked.
Ready to practice?
Subscribers can attempt this question in 250 words and get an instant, rubric-based evaluation showing where they stand.
Subscribe to evaluate your answer →