BPSC 70th CCE Re-exam Prelims General Studies · Question 91 of 142

Correct — A, Mizoram. Begin by noticing that the census the stem names does not exist. India's last census was the fifteenth, in 2011; the one due in 2021 was postponed and the sixteenth is only now being taken, with house-listing that began on 1 April 2026 and population enumeration set for February 2027. So 'the 2023 census' can only mean the most recent official literacy estimate of 2023 vintage, and that is the Periodic Labour Force Survey. The NSSO's Annual Report on the PLFS for July 2023 to June 2024, released on 23 September 2024, gives literacy for persons aged seven and above, rural and urban combined, as: Mizoram 98.2, Lakshadweep 97.3, Nagaland 95.7, Kerala 95.3, Goa 93.6, Himachal Pradesh 88.8, all-India 80.9. Mizoram is first in the country and first among the four offered. The earlier National Statistical Commission survey of 2017-18 says the same thing more emphatically — Mizoram 99.01 against Kerala 96.2. And there is a strong internal clue in the paper itself: the printed order, Mizoram then Kerala then Goa then Himachal Pradesh, is exactly the descending order on both of those datasets, and is not the Census 2011 order, which runs Kerala 94.00, Mizoram 91.33, Goa 88.70, Himachal Pradesh 82.80. A setter who lifted the top of a recent table and typed it straight down the option list produces the sequence that is printed. That is why our derivation names Mizoram, while recording honestly that a setter working from an older book would have keyed Kerala.

• (b)Kerala — The near-miss, and the most-taught fact in Indian general knowledge — but it belongs to Census 2011, where Kerala led at 94.00 per cent with Mizoram second at 91.33. On both post-2011 datasets the order reverses: Kerala is 96.2 against Mizoram's 99.01 in 2017-18, and 95.3 against 98.2 in the PLFS of 2023-24, where Kerala is in fact fourth in the country behind Mizoram, Lakshadweep and Nagaland. It remains the leading large state, which is a different claim.
• (c)Goa — Third of these four on every dataset without exception — 88.70 per cent in Census 2011, 87.4 in 2017-18 and 93.6 in the PLFS of 2023-24. Goa's very high per-capita income and small, heavily urban population make it a plausible-looking guess, and it has since been declared a fully literate state, but it has never been first in the country on any published literacy series.
• (d)Himachal Pradesh — The lowest of the four on all three datasets — 82.80 per cent in Census 2011, 86.6 in 2017-18 and 88.8 in the PLFS of 2023-24, which is below the figure Goa recorded fifteen years earlier. Himachal Pradesh is genuinely a strong performer among the northern states and is often cited for its school system, but it is not close to the national top.

Since Census 2011 India has had no census, so every literacy figure quoted after that year comes from a sample survey rather than a complete enumeration, and the two are not interchangeable. A census counts everybody; a survey estimates from a sample and carries sampling error, which is why survey-based state figures can move by several points between rounds in a way census figures never do. The two survey sources that matter are the National Sample Survey's 75th round on household consumption of education, covering July 2017 to June 2018, and the annual Periodic Labour Force Survey, which the NSSO has run since 2017-18 and which publishes a literacy table as an appendix to its labour report. Both define literacy the way the census does — the ability to read and write with understanding in any language, measured for persons aged seven and above — so the series are comparable in definition even though they differ in method. A separate strand is administrative: under the ULLAS or Nav Bharat Saksharta Karyakram scheme a state is certified 'fully literate' on reaching 95 per cent, and Mizoram was the first to be so declared, in May 2025 — after this paper was sat, so it cannot have been the setter's source, but it is the cleanest way to remember which state is now first.

This item is a good illustration of a question you can answer by reading the paper rather than the syllabus. The stem cites a census that was never held, which tells you the setter is working from a secondary compilation rather than a primary source, and compilations of that kind are usually built off the newest table available. The option order then confirms it: on the PLFS and on the 2017-18 round the four states run in exactly the printed sequence, whereas Census 2011 would have put Kerala at the top. Two independent derivations both landed on Mizoram, and both marked their confidence as medium rather than high, for one reason worth internalising — 'Kerala has the highest literacy rate in India' is probably the single most repeated fact in Indian general knowledge, and it is a 2011 fact. If the setter simply believed it, the intended answer is Kerala and nothing in the paper can prove otherwise, because this edition has no published answer key. The wider lesson is to date every statistic you memorise. A literacy figure, a sex ratio, a density, a poverty headcount: each belongs to a source and a year, and questions increasingly turn on which source is being asked about rather than on the number itself.

• PLFS July 2023 – June 2024 (NSSO, released 23 September 2024), literacy of persons aged 7 and above, rural + urban: Mizoram 98.2, Lakshadweep 97.3, Nagaland 95.7, Kerala 95.3, Goa 93.6, Himachal Pradesh 88.8, all-India 80.9.
• Census 2011, same age definition: Kerala 94.00, Mizoram 91.33, Goa 88.70, Himachal Pradesh 82.80, all-India 74.04 — Kerala first and Mizoram second, the reverse of the modern order.
• NSS 75th round, July 2017 – June 2018: Mizoram 99.01 and Kerala 96.2, so the reversal had already happened well before 2023.
• Bihar recorded the lowest literacy of any State in Census 2011 at 61.80 per cent, rising to 70.9 in the 2017-18 round and 74.3 in the PLFS of 2023-24 — still the lowest in the country and still about six points below the national average.
• India has had no census since 2011: the sixteenth census began its house-listing phase on 1 April 2026 with population enumeration due in February 2027, and will enumerate caste for the first time since 1931.

• Answering 'Kerala' reflexively. It is correct for Census 2011 and for questions about the leading large state, but every post-2011 dataset puts Mizoram first.
• Treating a survey figure as a census figure. There has been no census since 2011, so any literacy number attached to 2017, 2023 or 2024 comes from a sample survey and should be quoted with its source.
• Ignoring the option order. When a paper lists four states in exactly the descending order of one dataset and not of another, the ordering is itself evidence about which table the setter was reading.

BPSC asks a bare superlative attached to a year — highest literacy, highest density, largest producer — and here it attached one to a census that was never held, which is the sort of defect worth spotting rather than arguing with. UPSC has never asked this as a bare superlative in recent decades; when it used literacy in 1997 it asked candidates to rank four states in descending order of female literacy for a named census, and its modern habit is to test the definition, the source and the trend rather than the leader.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  As per Census 2011, which State recorded the highest literacy rate in India ?

  • (a)Mizoram
  • (b)Kerala
  • (c)Tripura
  • (d)Goa

  Answer(b) Kerala — 94.00 per cent, with Mizoram second at 91.33 and Goa fourth at 88.70. The order reverses on every post-2011 survey, where Mizoram is first.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  As per Census 2011, which State recorded the lowest literacy rate in India ?

  • (a)Rajasthan
  • (b)Jharkhand
  • (c)Bihar
  • (d)Arunachal Pradesh

  Answer(c) Bihar — 61.80 per cent, below Arunachal Pradesh 65.38, Rajasthan 66.11 and Jharkhand 66.41, and well under the all-India figure of 74.04.