CDS (I) 2020 General Knowledge · Question 93 of 120

Correct — D, the Department of Heavy Industry and the Department of Public Enterprises. The ministry's name at the time of the exam is itself the answer key. 'Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises' names two halves, and each half was a department — the Department of Heavy Industry, which handled the engineering, machine-tool, automotive and heavy-electrical sectors and the central public sector undertakings in them, and the Department of Public Enterprises, the government's nodal department for policy on central public sector enterprises generally. The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, which appears in two of the wrong options, belongs to a different ministry altogether, and the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research belongs to a third.

• (a)the Department of Heavy Industry and the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade — The first half is right and the second is not. The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade sits in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry — it is the department that frames industrial policy, handles foreign direct investment policy and is the nodal body for intellectual property rights.
• (b)the Department of Public Enterprises and the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade — Pairs one department of this ministry with a department of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. Two departments from two different ministries cannot compose one ministry.
• (c)the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and the Department of Heavy Industry — The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research is part of the Ministry of Science and Technology, and is the department under which the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research functions. The word 'industrial' in its name is what makes this option tempting.

A Union ministry is a political and administrative unit; a department is the secretariat unit inside it, headed by a Secretary, to which subjects are allotted by the Government of India (Allocation of Business) Rules. Some ministries have one department, some have several, and departments are moved between ministries by amending those Rules — which is exactly what happened to one of the two departments in this question.

This is an item you can reason out rather than recall, because the ministry's own name lists its parts. The method generalises: the Ministry of Commerce and Industry contains the Department of Commerce and the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade; the Ministry of Science and Technology contains the Department of Science and Technology, the Department of Biotechnology and the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. The composition has since changed. The Department of Public Enterprises was moved to the Ministry of Finance, and the parent ministry is now called simply the Ministry of Heavy Industries — so a candidate reading this paper today should treat the answer as the position at the February 2020 exam. UPSC itself registered the change: its CDS (II) 2021 paper asked which ministry the Department of Public Enterprises is part of and keyed the answer as the Ministry of Finance.

• At the 2020 exam the Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises comprised the Department of Heavy Industry and the Department of Public Enterprises.
• The Department of Public Enterprises has since moved to the Ministry of Finance, and the parent ministry is now the Ministry of Heavy Industries.
• The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade is a department of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
• The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research is a department of the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research works under it.
• The Ministry of Heavy Industries oversees around forty central public sector undertakings across heavy engineering, electrical engineering and automotive manufacturing.

• Assuming a department stays put — the Department of Public Enterprises did not, and later papers key it to the Ministry of Finance.
• Reading 'industrial' in a department's name as proof that it belongs to an industry ministry; the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research is under Science and Technology.
• Confusing the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade with its earlier name, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, in older question papers.

As a department-to-ministry pairing, or as a single-line question asking which ministry a named department belongs to.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade functions under which one of the following Union Ministries?

  • (a)Ministry of Heavy Industries
  • (b)Ministry of Commerce and Industry
  • (c)Ministry of Finance
  • (d)Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises

  Answer(b) Ministry of Commerce and Industry — it was renamed from the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion in 2019 and is the nodal department for industrial policy and for intellectual property rights.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research functions under which one of the following departments?

  • (a)Department of Heavy Industry
  • (b)Department of Public Enterprises
  • (c)Department of Scientific and Industrial Research
  • (d)Department of Atomic Energy

  Answer(c) Department of Scientific and Industrial Research — a department of the Ministry of Science and Technology.