Parliament can’t examine every Bill, budget line, and ministry on the floor of the House. So it hands the real scrutiny work to committees — some permanent, some built for a single task, then dissolved.
Standing Committee: A permanent body, reconstituted regularly, that keeps working across sessions — like the PAC or Estimates Committee.
Ad hoc Committee: A committee built for one specific task, such as reviewing a single Bill, which dissolves once that task is done.
DRSC: A Departmentally Related Standing Committee — one of 24 bodies, each shadowing a specific set of ministries.
JPC: A Joint Parliamentary Committee, an ad hoc body with members from both Houses, formed to examine one Bill or issue.
1Standing vs ad hoc, and the money committees
Must Know
1.1 What’s the difference between a Standing and an Ad hoc Committee?
Some committees never stop working. The Public Accounts Committee, the Estimates Committee, and the Committee on Public Undertakings are all permanent bodies. They get rebuilt on a regular cycle, but they never actually shut down. Those are Standing Committees.
Others exist for exactly one job. A Select or Joint Committee formed to study a single Bill only exists until that Bill is disposed of. Once the report is in, the committee is gone. That’s an Ad hoc Committee. The test for telling them apart is simple: is it tied to one Bill, or is it a recurring watchdog that keeps working year after year? One Bill means ad hoc. Recurring means standing.
True or False: The Estimates Committee is an ad hoc committee, while the Railway Convention Committee is a standing committee.
Must Know
1.2 What do the three Financial Committees actually do?
Three committees exist purely to watch the money. The Public Accounts Committee has 22 members, 15 from the Lok Sabha and 7 from the Rajya Sabha, each serving a one-year term. It checks spending after the money is already gone, using the CAG’s audit reports as its evidence.
The Estimates Committee looks the other way in time. It has 30 members, and every single one comes from the Lok Sabha, with no Rajya Sabha seats at all. Its job is studying future budget estimates and suggesting where money could be saved before it’s spent. The Committee on Public Undertakings, 22 members again split 15 and 7, checks the reports and accounts of public sector companies.
One rule binds all three, and every other Parliamentary Committee besides: no sitting Minister can sit on any of them, not even the one that oversees their own ministry.
True or False: Every one of Parliament’s three Financial Committees includes Rajya Sabha members.
2The 24 DRSCs and who leads what
Good to Know
2.1 What are the 24 Departmentally Related Standing Committees?
Between them, 24 Departmentally Related Standing Committees, or DRSCs, cover every central ministry and department. They were reorganised into their current shape in 2004, replacing an earlier set of just 17.
Each DRSC seats 31 members: 21 from the Lok Sabha, picked by the Speaker, and 10 from the Rajya Sabha, picked by the Chairman, each serving a one-year term. Sixteen of the 24 DRSCs run under the Lok Sabha Secretariat; the other eight run under the Rajya Sabha Secretariat. Each committee shadows a specific set of ministries, and that’s exactly where exams like to press: not just how many DRSCs exist, but which ministries a named committee actually covers.
Show the full list of all 24 DRSCs and what each one covers
- Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Food Processing — Agriculture and Farmers Welfare
- Chemicals and Fertilizers — Chemicals and Fertilizers
- Coal, Mines and Steel — Coal; Steel
- Commerce — Commerce and Industry; Textiles
- Defence — Defence
- Energy — Power; New and Renewable Energy
- External Affairs — External Affairs
- Finance — Finance; Corporate Affairs
- Food, Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution — Food Processing; Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution
- Health and Family Welfare — Health; AYUSH
- Home Affairs — Home Affairs
- Human Resource Development — Education
- Industry — Heavy Industries; MSME
- Information Technology — Communications and IT
- Labour, Textiles and Skill Development — Labour and Employment
- Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice — Law and Justice; Personnel and Public Grievances
- Petroleum and Natural Gas — Petroleum and Natural Gas
- Railways — Railways
- Rural Development and Panchayati Raj — Rural Development; Panchayati Raj
- Science and Technology, Environment and Forests — Science and Technology; Environment, Forests and Climate Change
- Social Justice and Empowerment — Social Justice and Empowerment; Tribal Affairs
- Transport, Tourism and Culture — Road Transport and Highways; Civil Aviation; Tourism; Culture
- Urban Development — Housing and Urban Affairs
- Water Resources — Jal Shakti (Water Resources)
Good to Know
2.2 Why does the Opposition chair the PAC while the ruling party chairs the Estimates Committee?
Since 1967, the PAC Chairperson has by convention come from the Opposition, a Speaker-appointed post, not one the committee’s own members elect. The Estimates Committee runs on the opposite convention: its Chairman comes from the ruling party.
Think it through: why the opposite conventions?
The two committees look at spending from opposite ends of time. The PAC checks money the government has already spent. It’s an audit of past decisions, using the CAG’s findings. Handing that job to the Opposition gives the check real teeth, since the ruling party has an obvious reason to go easy on its own record. The Estimates Committee looks the other way, at future spending plans, and suggests ways to save money before it goes out. That’s closer to planning than to an audit, so it stays with the side already in charge of running things. Exams often swap this pairing, so it helps to remember both halves together, not one at a time.
True or False: The Public Accounts Committee Chairperson is, by convention, always from the ruling party.
3Other committees
Great to Know
3.1 What about SC/ST welfare and delegated legislation?
The Committee on the Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes has 30 members, 20 from the Lok Sabha and 10 from the Rajya Sabha. Its Chairperson is picked by the Lok Sabha Speaker from among the committee’s own members, not by the Rajya Sabha Chairman, which is the trap version of this fact.
A different, narrower job belongs to the Committee on Subordinate Legislation. It checks exactly one thing: whether the Executive stays inside the rule-making power Parliament actually gave it.
Regulator oversight, covering telecom, insurance, and electricity, falls to Ad hoc Committees and DRSCs. It’s worth remembering who doesn’t hold that job: the Finance Commission, the FSLRC, and NITI Aayog all sound like plausible candidates, but none of them does it.
4Exam Practice: PYQ Pattern
Common traps in this topic
- Swapping which committee is standing vs ad hoc — Estimates is standing, Railway Convention is ad hoc.
- Claiming all three Financial Committees have Rajya Sabha members. The Estimates Committee has none.
- Reversing the PAC/Estimates chairing convention: PAC is Opposition-led, Estimates is ruling-party-led.
5Current Affairs
Current Affairs
DRSC reconstitution and JPCs in the news
All 24 DRSCs were reconstituted in September 2024, right after the 18th Lok Sabha election. Leadership shifted in the process: Shashi Tharoor kept the External Affairs committee, while Bhartruhari Mahtab took over Finance.
A JPC on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill submitted its report on 31 January 2025, tabled on 13 February 2025 with 14 amendments. A separate JPC on “One Nation, One Election” was formed in December 2024, chaired by P.P. Chaudhary, and more JPCs followed through November 2025. Ad hoc JPCs tied to a live Bill keep coming up in current affairs, and exams like to pair each JPC to its Bill and its chairperson. That pairing, more than the raw count, is what’s worth tracking.
Quick recall: Which Financial Committee has no Rajya Sabha members at all?
The Estimates Committee — all 30 of its members come from the Lok Sabha.
Quick recall: Why is the PAC chaired by the Opposition, but the Estimates Committee by the ruling party?
The PAC audits past spending, so Opposition leadership keeps that scrutiny meaningful. The Estimates Committee plans future spending, closer to policy work, so the ruling side leads it.
Quick recall: How many DRSCs are there, and when were they last reorganised?
24 DRSCs, reorganised in 2004 from an earlier set of 17. They were last reconstituted in September 2024.
Quick recall: Can a sitting Minister serve on a Parliamentary Committee?
No, not even on the committee that oversees the Minister’s own ministry.
MCQ on Parliamentary Committees in India
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