Question

The highest administrative officer in the district is the _________.
A. District Superintendent of Police
B. District Collector
C. District Health Officer
D. Chief Executive Officer

Answer 1

Hint: A district is an administrative division of an Indian state. These districts can be further partitioned into sub-divisions, and in others directly into tehsils or talukas. There is a total of 741 districts as of 2020, up from the 640 in the 2011 Census of India. The number of districts was 593 as recorded in the 2001 Census of India.

Complete answer:
The post of District Collector has been the main component of field administration in India for the last 200 years. Before Independence, when the economy was basically agrarian, the Collector as the top of the land income, the organization additionally appreciating wide powers under criminal laws. He was considered as a guardian figure - answerable for the prosperity of inhabitants in his ward.
In the post-Independence period, when the economy differentiated, and the movement of industrialization and development of tertiary exercises got, different functionaries too picked up insignificance. Yet, even now, in most of India except for metropolitan, the Collector is the head of the organization; he is viewed as the key agent of the public authority at the district level, who could be approached to tackle basically all issues going from land debates to a shortage of basic products, to deficiency of help in the midst of an emergency, to network questions and even to issues of family dissensions.

Thus, option (B) is correct.

Note: District as a fundamental unit of field organization has been present through the ages. It is astounding to realize that it has not changed significantly, from the rule of Mauryas to Mughals to British time. Generally, the district in some structure or different has been the main unit of organization in the Indian subcontinent.