BPSC 70th CCE Prelims Q127: What was the Per Capita Net State Domestic Product at

Q: What is the answer to BPSC 70th CCE Prelims Q127?

B. Correct — B, ₹ 54,111. Two independent checks converge on this figure. First, the ceiling: PRS Legislative Research's analysis of the Bihar Budget 2024-25 records the state's per capita GSDP for 2022-23 at current prices as ₹59,637. Net State Domestic Product is GSDP minus the consumption of fixed capital — depreciation — so per capita NSDP must be smaller than ₹59,637, which rules out option (d) ₹61,434 outright as arithmetically impossible. Of the three that remain, ₹54,111 implies depreciation of about 9 per cent of state output, which is the usual order for an Indian state; ₹47,498 would imply about 20 per cent and ₹42,083 about 29 per cent, both far outside any plausible range. Second, the growth check: the four options are not random numbers but a run of consecutive years in the same series, and the step from ₹47,498 to ₹54,111 is a rise of 13.9 per cent — which matches the independently reported fact that Bihar's per capita GSDP in 2022-23 rose 14 per cent over the previous year. That is the year the question asks about. For scale, ₹54,111 is roughly 32 per cent of India's per capita net national income at current prices in the same year, ₹1,69,496, which is why Bihar remains the state with the lowest per capita income in the country despite double-digit nominal growth.

BPSC 70th CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 127 of 143

Verified against the official question booklet. Answer as per the official BPSC answer key.

Answers derived, not from the official key. BPSC published an answer key for BPSC 70th CCE at the time, but it is no longer available from the Commission or in any web archive. The answers here are our best-supported answers — solved from the question itself and cross-checked against primary sources — and each card says how certain it is. The question text is verbatim from the official booklet. These are not the Commission's answer key.

Question order, option order and answers follow the official BPSC Booklet Series E, paper code 09/C/GO/CC/PT-2024(Q).

What was the Per Capita Net State Domestic Product at Current Prices for Bihar for the fiscal year 2022-23, based on the base year 2011-12 ?

(a)₹ 42,083
(b)₹ 54,111
(c)₹ 47,498
(d)₹ 61,434

Answer

Why

Correct — B, ₹ 54,111. Two independent checks converge on this figure. First, the ceiling: PRS Legislative Research's analysis of the Bihar Budget 2024-25 records the state's per capita GSDP for 2022-23 at current prices as ₹59,637. Net State Domestic Product is GSDP minus the consumption of fixed capital — depreciation — so per capita NSDP must be smaller than ₹59,637, which rules out option (d) ₹61,434 outright as arithmetically impossible. Of the three that remain, ₹54,111 implies depreciation of about 9 per cent of state output, which is the usual order for an Indian state; ₹47,498 would imply about 20 per cent and ₹42,083 about 29 per cent, both far outside any plausible range. Second, the growth check: the four options are not random numbers but a run of consecutive years in the same series, and the step from ₹47,498 to ₹54,111 is a rise of 13.9 per cent — which matches the independently reported fact that Bihar's per capita GSDP in 2022-23 rose 14 per cent over the previous year. That is the year the question asks about. For scale, ₹54,111 is roughly 32 per cent of India's per capita net national income at current prices in the same year, ₹1,69,496, which is why Bihar remains the state with the lowest per capita income in the country despite double-digit nominal growth.

Why the others are wrong

(a)₹ 42,083 — This is an earlier year in the same series — the level around the COVID-affected 2020-21, when output contracted. Against a per capita GSDP of ₹59,637 for 2022-23 it would imply depreciation of nearly 29 per cent of state output, which no state's accounts show.
(c)₹ 47,498 — The immediately preceding year in the series and therefore the closest trap: a candidate who remembers the number but not the year picks this. Applying the 14 per cent nominal rise recorded for 2022-23 to this figure lands on ₹54,111, which is the answer the question wants.
(d)₹ 61,434 — Larger than Bihar's per capita GSDP of ₹59,637 for the same year, which is impossible: NSDP is GSDP after subtracting depreciation, so it can never exceed it. This figure belongs to the following year of the series, not to 2022-23.

Concept

Gross State Domestic Product is the total value of goods and services produced within a state in a year. Subtract the consumption of fixed capital — the wearing out of machinery, buildings and infrastructure — and you get Net State Domestic Product; divide that by the state's population and you get per capita NSDP, the standard headline measure of a state's average income. Two qualifiers in the question do real work. 'At current prices' means the figure is nominal, so it includes inflation and cannot be compared across years as a measure of real growth; the constant-price series, which strips inflation out, is always the smaller number and the slower-growing one. 'Base year 2011-12' identifies which National Accounts series the estimate belongs to — India moved from a 2004-05 base to a 2011-12 base in January 2015, and figures from different bases are not comparable.

You are not expected to have memorised a five-digit number; you are expected to be able to bracket it. The reliable route is to anchor on one figure you do know and reason outward. Bihar's per capita GSDP for 2022-23 was about ₹59,600, and NSDP is always below GSDP — that single relation eliminates the highest option. Then remember that depreciation typically runs at roughly a tenth of output, which points at the option sitting just under the GSDP figure rather than the two sitting far below it. The setter's design is visible once you notice that all four options rise in steps of roughly 13 to 14 per cent: they are four consecutive years of one series, so the whole question is really asking which year is 2022-23. That is why simply knowing the trend — the COVID dip in 2020-21 followed by three years of double-digit nominal recovery — is worth more here than rote memory.

Key facts

Bihar's per capita GSDP at current prices for 2022-23 was ₹59,637, a rise of 14 per cent over the previous year (PRS analysis of the Bihar Budget 2024-25)
Bihar's GSDP grew 10.6 per cent in real terms in 2022-23, with services up 13 per cent, manufacturing 6.8 per cent and agriculture 6.7 per cent
India's per capita net national income at current prices was ₹1,69,496 in 2022-23 (first revised estimate), against ₹1,50,906 in 2021-22 — Bihar's per capita NSDP is roughly a third of the national figure
NSDP = GSDP minus consumption of fixed capital (depreciation), so per capita NSDP is always lower than per capita GSDP for the same state and year
The 2011-12 base year replaced the 2004-05 base in India's National Accounts from January 2015; figures on different bases cannot be compared directly

Bracketing the answer against Bihar's per capita GSDP of ₹59,637 (2022-23, current prices)

₹ 61,434→Above per capita GSDP — impossible, since NSDP is GSDP minus depreciation ✗

₹ 54,111→About 9% below GSDP — the normal depreciation share, and a 13.9% rise on the previous year, matching the reported 14% growth in 2022-23 ✓

₹ 47,498→Would imply depreciation of about 20% of state output — the previous year in the series ✗

₹ 42,083→Would imply depreciation of about 29% — the COVID-affected level two years earlier ✗

National benchmark for the same year→India's per capita net national income at current prices, 2022-23: ₹1,69,496 — Bihar is about 32% of it

The four options are consecutive years of one series rising 13-14% a year, so the question is really 'which year is 2022-23'. The GSDP ceiling settles it from above.

Study next

GSDP, NSDP and per capita income — definitions, the depreciation wedge, and current versus constant pricesBihar's sectoral composition and the services-led pattern of its recent growthInter-state comparison of per capita income: the highest and lowest states and the widening gapThe 2011-12 base-year revision of India's National Accounts and the shift from factor cost to basic pricesBihar Budget and Economic Survey — where the state's own headline economic numbers are published each year

Common traps

Quoting a per capita GSDP figure when the question asks for per capita NSDP — the second is always the smaller number
Ignoring the 'at current prices' qualifier; the constant-price series for the same state and year is considerably lower
Picking the adjacent year's value when the options are a consecutive series, which is exactly how this question is built

BPSC asks Bihar's macroeconomic headline as a bare number with four near-identical options, and it lifts the numbers straight from the state Economic Survey or Budget documents — so the four choices are usually four real years of the same table rather than invented figures. UPSC almost never asks a state number outright; it asks the concept behind it, such as why per capita income growth at current prices exceeds growth at constant prices, or how to rank states by per capita NSDP.

Related PYQs

UPSC_2001_GS1_Q442001Open & attempt →

Consider the following States: I. Gujarat II. Karnataka III. Maharashtra IV. Tamil Nadu The descending order of these States with reference to their level of Per Capita Net State Domestic Product is

(a) I, III, IV, II
(b) III, I, II, IV
(c) I, III, II, IV
(d) III, I, IV, II

Answer(b) III, I, II, IV

The identical indicator — per capita Net State Domestic Product — tested as a ranking across states rather than as a single value for one state; the same measure Bihar is being asked about here.

UPSC_2000_GS1_Q492000Open & attempt →

The growth rate of per capita income at current prices is higher than that of per capita income at constant prices, because the latter takes into account the rate of

(a) growth of population
(b) increase in price level
(c) growth of money supply
(d) increase in the wage rate

Answer(b) increase in price level

Explains the qualifier that does the work in this BPSC stem — 'at current prices'. The nominal series runs higher and grows faster because it carries inflation, which is why the constant-price figure for the same state and year is a different, smaller number.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
Net State Domestic Product (NSDP) differs from Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) by which of the following ?
- (a)Net factor income from abroad
- (b)Consumption of fixed capital (depreciation)
- (c)Indirect taxes less subsidies
- (d)Transfers from the Union Government
Answer(b) Consumption of fixed capital (depreciation) — NSDP = GSDP minus depreciation, which is why per capita NSDP is always below per capita GSDP for the same state and year.
practice — not a real PYQ
India's per capita net national income at current prices in 2022-23 (first revised estimate) was closest to
- (a)₹ 99,000
- (b)₹ 1,27,000
- (c)₹ 1,69,000
- (d)₹ 2,10,000
Answer(c) ₹ 1,69,000 — the figure was ₹1,69,496 at current prices; ₹99,404 is the same year's constant-price figure and ₹1,27,244 is the 2020-21 current-price figure.