India
India is a federal union comprising 29 states and 7 union territories. All states, as well in addition to the union territories of Puducherry and the National Capital Territory of Delhi, have elected legislatures and governments following on the Westminster system of governance. The remaining five union territories are directly ruled by the centre through appointed administrators. In 1956, under the States Reorganisation Act, states were reorganised on a linguistic basis. Since then, their structure has remained largely unchanged. Each state or union territory is further divided into administrative districts. The districts are further divided into tehsils and ultimately into villages.
Tehsil
India, as a vast country, is subdivided into many states and union territories for administrative purpose. Further "divisions" of these states are done into districts. These districts (jilla/zilla) are again divided into many subdivisions, viz tehsils or talukas. These subdivisions are again divided into gram panchayats or village panchayaths. Initially, this was done for collecting land revenue and administration purposes. But now these subdivisions of areas to be governed is followed by other departments of government like education, agriculture, irrigation, health, police, etc. The different departments of state government generally have offices at tehsil or taluka level to facilitate good governance and to provide facilities to common people easily.