Correct Option: A

The Balwant Rai Mehta Committee, headed by MP Balwantrai Mehta, was a committee appointed by the Government of India in January 1957 to examine the working of the Community Development Programme (1952) and the National Extension Service (1953) and to suggest measures for their better working. The recommendations of the committee were approved by NDC in January 1958 and this set the stage for the launching of Panchayati Raj Institutions throughout the country. The committee recommended the establishment of the scheme of 'democratic decentralisation' which finally came to be known as Panchayati Raj.