Support for Marginalized Individuals for Livelihood and Enterprise (SMILE) Scheme is meant for the rehabilitation of : 1. Transgender persons 2. Persons engaged in the act of Begging Select the answer using the codes given below :
- (a)1 only
- (b)2 only
- (c)Both 1 and 2
- (d)Neither 1 nor 2
Answer
Why
Correct — C, (c) Both 1 and 2. SMILE is an UMBRELLA scheme of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, launched in February 2022, and it was built by putting two existing central sector schemes under one roof: the Comprehensive Rehabilitation for Welfare of Transgender Persons, and the Comprehensive Rehabilitation of Persons engaged in the act of Begging. Both numbered entries therefore complete the stem correctly.
Entry 1 — CORRECT. The transgender sub-scheme funds scholarships, skill development under a dedicated component, medical support including gender-affirmation care through a health scheme, composite medical help and shelter. Its best-known element is the Garima Greh — shelter homes providing accommodation, food, medical care and recreational facilities along with skilling, run through implementing agencies across States and Union Territories.
Entry 2 — CORRECT. The begging sub-scheme covers survey and identification of persons engaged in begging, mobilisation, rescue and shelter, education, skilling and settlement, and is implemented city by city with the declared objective of a begging-free India. It is delivered largely through State and municipal bodies and voluntary organisations in selected cities.
The two together are the whole of SMILE, which is why an option that admits only one of them cannot be right. Read the scheme's expansion once and the answer follows from it: 'Support for Marginalized Individuals for Livelihood and Enterprise' is deliberately worded to cover more than one marginalised group.
Why the others are wrong
- (a)1 only — The transgender component is the more widely reported of the two — Garima Greh shelter homes and the scholarship component get most of the coverage — so a candidate who has read only that half stops here. It is half the scheme. The begging component was folded into the same umbrella on the same day and draws from the same allocation.
- (b)2 only — The mirror error of (a). Someone who last read about SMILE in connection with the begging-free-city surveys may take the scheme to be about destitution alone. The scheme's own architecture is two sub-schemes, and rehabilitation of transgender persons is the first of them.
- (d)Neither 1 nor 2 — This would be right only if SMILE were about some third group altogether — a candidate might reach it by guessing from the words 'Livelihood and Enterprise' that the scheme is a general self-employment or credit programme. It is not: it sits with the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment and names its two target groups in its own guidelines.
Concept
SMILE — Support for Marginalized Individuals for Livelihood and Enterprise — is a central sector umbrella scheme of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment launched in February 2022. An umbrella scheme is an administrative device: existing schemes with a common purpose are grouped under one name and one budget line so that they can be funded, monitored and reported together. SMILE's two limbs are the comprehensive rehabilitation of transgender persons and the comprehensive rehabilitation of persons engaged in the act of begging. Both limbs follow the same rehabilitation logic — identify, shelter, treat, educate or skill, and settle in a livelihood — which is what the words 'Livelihood and Enterprise' in the name refer to.
Welfare-scheme questions in this paper are almost always about matching a scheme to its beneficiaries or to its ministry, because those are the two facts a candidate can be tested on without ambiguity. SMILE is a favourite because its acronym gives nothing away about who it serves, and because candidates who know one of its two halves will confidently pick a one-only option. The habit the item rewards is asking, for every umbrella scheme, how many sub-schemes it contains.
Two features of the printing are worth registering. The stem ends in a COLON rather than a question mark, so the numbered entries complete a sentence rather than answering a question — read the stem and each entry as one continuous sentence and the ambiguity disappears. And the option ladder is the Both/Neither form, which recurs throughout the polity and governance block of this paper. That ladder converts two independent judgements into one mark, so a candidate who is certain about one entry and unsure of the other has, in effect, a fifty-fifty choice; the way to avoid that position on scheme questions is to learn every umbrella scheme by the number of sub-schemes it contains.
Key facts
- SMILE was launched by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment in February 2022 as an umbrella scheme.
- Sub-scheme one: Central Sector Scheme for Comprehensive Rehabilitation for Welfare of Transgender Persons.
- Sub-scheme two: Central Sector Scheme for Comprehensive Rehabilitation of Persons engaged in the act of Begging.
- Garima Greh shelter homes for transgender persons provide accommodation, food, medical care, skilling and recreational facilities.
- The begging component runs through survey and identification, rescue, shelter, education, skilling and settlement, implemented in selected cities.
- The transgender component also carries scholarships, skill development and medical assistance including gender-affirmation care.
- SMILE is a CENTRAL SECTOR scheme — fully funded by the Union Government — not a centrally sponsored scheme shared with the States.
Study next
Common traps
- Answering a two-part umbrella scheme with a one-only option because you know only one part.
- Guessing beneficiaries from a scheme's acronym; SMILE, PM-DAKSH and similar names describe an aspiration, not a group.
- Confusing central sector with centrally sponsored — the funding pattern is a standard follow-up question.
- Assuming the stem's numbered entries are exclusive alternatives; on a Both/Neither ladder they very often are not.
The scheme item in an EPFO general ability paper is usually one line and one fact: which ministry, which beneficiaries, or which objective. The Both/Neither ladder used here is the examiner's way of testing whether you know a scheme's full scope rather than its headline. Build your scheme notes as ministry, beneficiaries, year, and any sub-scheme names.
Related PYQs
EPFO_EOAO_2017_Q48Which one of the following schemes is aimed at all-round development of adolescent girls in the age group of 11–18 years and making them self-reliant?
- (a) RGSEAG
- (b) IGMSY
- (c) NMEW
- (d) RMK
Answer(a) RGSEAG
The same test in its older form — a scheme named only by its acronym, matched to the group it is meant to make self-reliant.
Practice
- practice — not a real PYQ
The SMILE Scheme is administered by which one among the following Ministries ?
- (a)Ministry of Women and Child Development
- (b)Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment
- (c)Ministry of Rural Development
- (d)Ministry of Labour and Employment
Answer(b) Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment
- practice — not a real PYQ
'Garima Greh', a component of a Central Sector scheme, provides shelter and rehabilitation for which one among the following groups ?
- (a)Senior citizens without family support
- (b)Victims of trafficking
- (c)Transgender persons
- (d)Children in conflict with law
Answer(c) Transgender persons