Which of the following criteria are specified for granting Special Category Status to States in India? 1. Hilly and difficult terrain 2. Economic and infrastructural backwardness 3. Strategic coastal zone 4. Sizeable share of tribal population Select the answer using the code given below:

Correct — C, 1, 2 and 4 only. The National Development Council settled five criteria for Special Category Status, and the Government still recites them in the same words when it turns down a claim. They are hilly and difficult terrain; low population density and, or, a sizeable share of tribal population; strategic location along borders with neighbouring countries; economic and infrastructural backwardness; and non-viable nature of State finances. Items 1, 2 and 4 of the stem are three of those five, worded almost exactly as the Government words them. Item 3 is the invented one. There is a strategic criterion, but it is about land frontiers with neighbouring countries — the reasoning being that a State whose districts run up against an international border carries costs and constraints an interior State does not. A long coastline has never been a ground for the status, which is why no coastal State has ever qualified on that footing while landlocked hill States on the northern and eastern frontiers have. Read item 3 against the real criterion and the answer is immediate.

• (a)1 and 2 only — Drops the tribal-population criterion, which is genuinely one of the five — paired in the official wording with low population density.
• (b)3 and 4 only — Keeps the false item and throws out two true ones. Hilly terrain and economic and infrastructural backwardness are the two criteria almost every claimant State argues from.
• (d)1, 2, 3 and 4 — The tempting all-of-them pick, and it fails on item 3 alone. Substitute 'strategic location along international borders' for 'strategic coastal zone' and this option would be right.

Special Category Status is not in the Constitution. It was an administrative device: from 1969 the National Development Council marked out States it judged structurally disadvantaged and gave them a softer deal on central assistance — a far larger grant component in place of loans, and much higher central shares in centrally sponsored schemes. The status went to the North-Eastern States together with Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and the then State of Jammu and Kashmir, eleven in all. Assam, Nagaland and Jammu and Kashmir were the first three in 1969; Uttarakhand was the last addition, in 2001.

The item is a definition test with one fabricated entry, and the fabrication is chosen so that it sounds like the kind of thing a criterion would say. Two habits defeat it. First, remember that the strategic criterion is about frontiers, not coasts — the status was created for States on the Himalayan and north-eastern borders, whose difficulty is remoteness and terrain rather than sea access. Second, notice that the option pattern gives it away: three options contain items 1 and 2, so the question is really asking only about items 3 and 4, and only one of those can be admitted if the answer is to differ from 'all of them'. On currency, the position has moved since the category was created. The Fourteenth Finance Commission, reporting in 2014 for the period from 2015, did not continue the distinction for purposes of central assistance, raising the States' share of the divisible pool of central taxes from 32 to 42 per cent instead and folding the special States' needs into that. Demands for the status nevertheless recur — Bihar's, Andhra Pradesh's and Odisha's most often. On Bihar the Centre told Parliament in July 2024 that an Inter-Ministerial Group had reported in March 2012 that the case was not made out.

• The five criteria are hilly and difficult terrain; low population density and, or, sizeable tribal population; strategic location along borders with neighbouring countries; economic and infrastructural backwardness; and non-viable State finances.
• The criteria come from the National Development Council, applied from 1969; the status has no constitutional basis.
• Assam, Nagaland and Jammu and Kashmir received it first in 1969; the category later covered all the North-Eastern States plus Himachal Pradesh and, from 2001, Uttarakhand.
• The Fourteenth Finance Commission discontinued the distinction for central assistance and raised the States' share of central taxes from 32 to 42 per cent.
• There has never been a coastal criterion; the strategic ground is proximity to international land borders.

• Treating Special Category Status as a constitutional provision; it is an executive arrangement of the National Development Council.
• Confusing it with Article 371 special provisions or with the former Article 370 — those are constitutional and do not depend on these five criteria.
• Assuming the status still governs central assistance; the Fourteenth Finance Commission replaced it with a larger tax share for all States.

As a criteria list with one planted entry, as a which-States item, or as a statements question pairing the status with the Finance Commission that ended it.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Special Category Status for States in India derives from which one of the following?

  • (a)An express provision of the Constitution
  • (b)A recommendation of the National Development Council
  • (c)A judgment of the Supreme Court
  • (d)An Act of Parliament of 1969

  Answer(b) A recommendation of the National Development Council — the status was an administrative arrangement applied from 1969 and has no constitutional basis.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which Finance Commission raised the share of States in the divisible pool of central taxes from 32 per cent to 42 per cent?

  • (a)Twelfth
  • (b)Thirteenth
  • (c)Fourteenth
  • (d)Fifteenth

  Answer(c) Fourteenth — it raised the States' share to 42 per cent and stopped treating special category States separately for central assistance.