BPSC 70th CCE Re-exam Prelims Q54: Which company became the first Indian company to cross the

Q: What is the answer to BPSC 70th CCE Re-exam Prelims Q54?

B. Correct — B, Reliance Industries. The company can be fixed without any argument, and the proof comes from the runner-up rather than the winner. When Tata Consultancy Services touched a market capitalisation of US$200 billion on 15 September 2021, it was reported as the first Indian *IT* company to do so and, in the same breath, as the **second** Indian company of any kind to reach the mark — after Reliance Industries. If TCS was second, no other name on this list can have been first, and Reliance must have been. The scale behind that is easy to see: Reliance is the largest Indian public company by market capitalisation and by revenue, ranks 88th in the world on the Fortune Global 500, is India's largest private taxpayer and its largest exporter at about 7 per cent of the country's merchandise exports. Its market capitalisation stood at Rs 17.59 lakh crore — roughly US$224 billion — in December 2022, comfortably past the two-hundred-billion line. Note what the stem gets wrong, because it matters for how you read it: the crossing did **not** happen in 2023. Reliance was already through the mark before TCS reached it in September 2021, and was well past it a year before the date printed here. The company is not in doubt; only the year is, and no option depends on the year.

BPSC 70th CCE Re-exam Prelims General Studies · Question 54 of 142

Verified against the official question booklet. Answer derived — no official key exists for this edition.

Answers derived, not from the official key. BPSC published an answer key for BPSC 70th CCE Re-exam 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 I, paper code 01/BPP/GO/CC/PT-2025(Y).

Which company became the first Indian company to cross the 200 billion USD market capitalization in 2023 ?

(a)TCS
(b)Reliance Industries
(c)HDFC Bank
(d)Infosys

Answer

Why

Correct — B, Reliance Industries. The company can be fixed without any argument, and the proof comes from the runner-up rather than the winner. When Tata Consultancy Services touched a market capitalisation of US$200 billion on 15 September 2021, it was reported as the first Indian *IT* company to do so and, in the same breath, as the **second** Indian company of any kind to reach the mark — after Reliance Industries. If TCS was second, no other name on this list can have been first, and Reliance must have been. The scale behind that is easy to see: Reliance is the largest Indian public company by market capitalisation and by revenue, ranks 88th in the world on the Fortune Global 500, is India's largest private taxpayer and its largest exporter at about 7 per cent of the country's merchandise exports. Its market capitalisation stood at Rs 17.59 lakh crore — roughly US$224 billion — in December 2022, comfortably past the two-hundred-billion line. Note what the stem gets wrong, because it matters for how you read it: the crossing did **not** happen in 2023. Reliance was already through the mark before TCS reached it in September 2021, and was well past it a year before the date printed here. The company is not in doubt; only the year is, and no option depends on the year.

Why the others are wrong

(a)TCS — The closest thing to a real competitor, and the reason the question is not trivial. TCS was the first Indian company to record $1 billion in revenue (2003), the first past Rs 5 lakh crore in market capitalisation (July 2014), and it briefly overtook Reliance as India's most valuable company on 25 January 2021. But when it hit $200 billion on 15 September 2021 it was expressly reported as the second Indian company to get there, behind Reliance.
(c)HDFC Bank — India's largest private-sector bank, and it grew abruptly in July 2023 when HDFC Ltd merged into it — which is why it looks like a 2023 answer. But the $200 billion mark had already been crossed twice by then, by Reliance and then TCS, so a bank arriving in 2023 cannot have been the first Indian company past it.
(d)Infosys — India's second-largest IT services company, and a household name in exactly the way this question rewards, but it has never been India's most valuable listed company. Since TCS — consistently the larger of the two IT firms by market value — was only the second Indian company to $200 billion, Infosys cannot have been the first.

Concept

Market capitalisation is simply the number of a company's shares multiplied by the price of one share — the stock market's running valuation of the whole business. It is not turnover, not profit and not assets, which is why a loss-making company can be worth more than a profitable one and why the ranking of Indian companies by market capitalisation differs from the ranking by revenue. Reliance happens to top both. The measure moves with the share price, so a milestone like '$200 billion' is a moment, not a permanent status: a company can cross it, fall back below and cross again, and a rupee milestone and a dollar milestone can be reached in different years because the exchange rate moves too. The Sensex and the Nifty are built on the same quantity — the Sensex is a free-float market-capitalisation-weighted index of thirty BSE-listed shares, so each constituent's weight is proportional to the market value of its freely tradable shares.

Attack this as an elimination among four famous names rather than as a date question. Reliance is the only Indian company that has ever been the largest by both market capitalisation and revenue simultaneously, and the other three are all in a lower weight class: two IT services firms and a bank. Then use the one hard fact that settles it — TCS reached $200 billion in September 2021 as the *second* Indian company to do so — and the field closes. Be alert to the stem's year: the crossing was earlier than 2023, and BPSC has printed a current-affairs question whose date does not survive checking. That happens often enough with 'first to reach X' items that the right habit is to answer the company and treat the year as decoration, since none of the four options is a year.

Key facts

Reliance Industries is India's largest public company by both market capitalisation and revenue, ranks 88th on the Fortune Global 500, and is India's largest private taxpayer and largest exporter at about 7 per cent of national merchandise exports.
Its market capitalisation was Rs 17.59 lakh crore, about US$224 billion, in December 2022.
TCS reached a US$200 billion market capitalisation on 15 September 2021 — reported as the first Indian IT company and the second Indian company overall to do so, after Reliance.
Reliance began as Reliance Commercial Corporation in 1958 under Dhirubhai Ambani, was incorporated as Reliance Textiles Industries in Maharashtra in 1966, and made its IPO in 1977, which was over-subscribed seven times.
Its Jamnagar integrated petrochemical complex in Gujarat, built between 1998 and 2000, is the largest refinery in the world; its KG-D6 gas discovery of 2002 was the first major find by an Indian private company.

TCS was reported as the SECOND Indian company past $200 billion — which closes the question without needing the year

(a) TCS — reached US$200 bn on 15 September 2021→Reported as the first Indian IT company and the SECOND Indian company overall to get there. Being second is the whole proof: someone was already past the line.

(b) Reliance Industries→The company TCS was second to. India's largest public company by BOTH market capitalisation and revenue; Rs 17.59 lakh crore, about US$224 bn, in December 2022. The answer.

(c) HDFC Bank→India's largest private-sector bank; grew abruptly when HDFC Ltd merged into it in July 2023 — which is why it looks like a 2023 answer. But the mark had already been crossed twice by then.

(d) Infosys→India's second-largest IT services company and never India's most valuable listed company. If the larger of the two IT firms was only second, Infosys cannot have been first.

The year printed in the stem — 2023→Does not survive checking: Reliance was through the mark before September 2021 and well past it in December 2022. No option is a year, so answer the company and treat the date as decoration.

Market capitalisation is shares multiplied by share price — a moment, not a permanent status. Solve this as an elimination among four famous names, anchored on the one hard fact that TCS was second.

Study next

Market capitalisation versus revenue, profit and enterprise value — and why India's largest company by each measure is not always the same firmThe Sensex and the Nifty 50: free-float market-capitalisation weighting, base years and what index movements do and do not meanIndia's large-cap corporate landscape — Reliance, TCS, HDFC Bank, Infosys, ICICI Bank, Bharti Airtel, LIC and the state-owned majorsThe HDFC Ltd - HDFC Bank merger of July 2023 and what a merger does to market capitalisationReliance's business mix: oil-to-chemicals, Jio Platforms, Reliance Retail, and the Jamnagar and KG-D6 assets

Common traps

Confusing the dollar milestone with the rupee milestone. Crossing Rs 10 lakh crore, Rs 15 lakh crore and US$200 billion are three different events in three different years, because the exchange rate moves as well as the share price.
Reading 'largest by revenue' as 'largest by market capitalisation'. They are different measures, and only in Reliance's case do they currently coincide.
Trusting the year printed in a current-affairs stem. Here the milestone predates 2023, but the answer is a company, so the wrong year changes nothing.

BPSC prints business current affairs as a single superlative — first, largest, highest — with four well-known names under it, and often attaches a year loosely. UPSC almost never asks which company is biggest; when it uses corporate India it asks about the concept behind the number, such as what a rise in the Sensex actually means or how the index is weighted.

Related PYQs

UPSC_2004_GS1_Q202004Open & attempt →

Which one of the following was the largest IT software and services exporter in India during the year 2002-03?

(a) Birlasoft
(b) Infosys Technologies
(c) Tata Consultancy Services
(d) Wipro Technologies

Answer(c) Tata Consultancy Services

The same question shape — four famous Indian companies, one superlative, one stated year — and it fixes the relative standing of TCS and Infosys that this card uses to eliminate two of its own options.

UPSC_2005_GS1_Q732005Open & attempt →

Consider the following statements : 1. Sensex is based on 50 of the most important stocks available on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) 2. For calculating the Sensex, all the Sensex stocks are assigned proportional weightage. 3. New York Stock Exchange is the oldest stock exchange in the world. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

(a) 2 only
(b) 1 and 3
(c) 2 and 3
(d) None

Answer(a) 2 only

Goes behind the headline number to the measure itself: the Sensex weights its constituents in proportion to market capitalisation, which is the same quantity this question asks a company to have crossed.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
The BSE Sensex is best described as
- (a)A simple average of the share prices of all BSE-listed companies
- (b)A free-float market-capitalisation-weighted index of 30 BSE-listed companies
- (c)An index of the 50 largest companies listed on the National Stock Exchange
- (d)A price-weighted index of 100 BSE-listed companies
Answer(b) A free-float market-capitalisation-weighted index of 30 BSE-listed companies. The 50-company index of the National Stock Exchange is the Nifty 50, a different index on a different exchange.
practice — not a real PYQ
The Jamnagar refinery complex, the largest refinery in the world, is located in which State ?
- (a)Maharashtra
- (b)Gujarat
- (c)Odisha
- (d)Tamil Nadu
Answer(b) Gujarat — the Reliance Industries integrated petrochemical and refining complex at Jamnagar, built between 1998 and 2000.