Assistant Provident Fund Commissioner (APFC) 2016 recruitment test, advertisement 170. Transcribed from the Commission's own booklet (series A, B-CRHE-O-PAPA); answer as per the official UPSC final answer key. This question is in Part B. Answer last reviewed 24 August 2026.

What is the number of States and Union Territories in India ?

(a)29 and 6
(b)28 and 7
(c)29 and 7
(d)28 and 6

Answer

Why

Correct — C, (c) 29 and 7.

At the time this paper was set the Union comprised twenty-nine States and seven Union Territories, and that is the pair the key takes.

The count of States reached twenty-nine on 2 June 2014, when Telangana was created from ten north-western districts of Andhra Pradesh under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014. Before that day the number had stood at twenty-eight since the year 2000, when Chhattisgarh, Uttaranchal — renamed Uttarakhand in 2007 — and Jharkhand were carved out of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar respectively.

The seven Union Territories were the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, the National Capital Territory of Delhi, Lakshadweep, and Puducherry. Delhi has been the National Capital Territory since the constitutional amendment of 1991 and has a legislative assembly, but it remains a Union Territory for the purposes of this count, which is where a candidate most often goes wrong by one.

The item is worth reading twice for what it does not say: it fixes no date. A question of this kind is answered as of the paper’s own moment, and the arithmetic has changed twice since. The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 took effect on 31 October 2019 and turned one State into two Union Territories, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, so the counts became twenty-eight and nine. Then Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu were merged into a single Union Territory with effect from 26 January 2020, and the counts became twenty-eight and eight, which is where they stand. That present-day pair is not among the four options, which is the clearest possible signal that the question belongs to its own year.

Why the others are wrong

(a)29 and 6 — ‘29 and 6’ gets the States right and the Union Territories wrong by one. Six is not the number at the time of this paper: the seven were the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, the National Capital Territory of Delhi, Lakshadweep and Puducherry. The commonest route to six is to leave Delhi out on the ground that it has a legislative assembly, a chief minister and a council of ministers, and therefore feels like a State. It is not one. The 69th Amendment of 1991 gave it the name National Capital Territory of Delhi and a legislature with limited powers, while leaving it a Union Territory administered under Article 239AA, with the Union retaining public order, police and land. Puducherry is the other Union Territory with a legislature, and it is left out for the same wrong reason by candidates who count only the territories run by an administrator.
(b)28 and 7 — ‘28 and 7’ is not a random pair — it is the correct answer to this question as it would have stood at any time between the year 2000 and 2 June 2014. Twenty-eight States, seven Union Territories was the position after the three reorganisations of 2000 and before the creation of Telangana. That is what makes it the strongest distractor on the list: it is a remembered fact rather than a guess, and a candidate whose general knowledge was fixed a few years before the examination will find it entirely familiar. The lesson is that a count of this kind is dated even when the stem carries no date, and the dates to keep are the ones on which the count moved — 2000, 2014, 2019 and 2020.
(d)28 and 6 — ‘28 and 6’ combines both errors, taking the pre-2014 number of States and dropping one Union Territory as well. It has no moment at which it was correct. Its usefulness is as a check on how these option sets are built: with two quantities to state, a setter can offer every combination of one right and one wrong value, so that no part of the answer can be got by matching a half-remembered figure. Both numbers have to be known independently. That is worth noticing whenever a stem asks for two counts at once, because the temptation is to recognise one figure, feel confident, and take an option that carries it.

Concept

India is a Union of States, and the first schedule to the Constitution lists the States and the Union Territories. The distinction between them is one of governance rather than of size. A State has its own legislature and government exercising the powers of the State List, and a Governor as constitutional head. A Union Territory is administered by the President acting through an administrator, who may be styled Lieutenant Governor or Administrator; two of them, Delhi and Puducherry, have legislative assemblies of their own with limited competence.

The map has been redrawn many times, and the milestones are worth carrying. The States Reorganisation Act, 1956 recast the units of the Union on linguistic lines. Bombay State was divided into Maharashtra and Gujarat in 1960, and Punjab into Punjab and Haryana in 1966, when Chandigarh became a Union Territory. Himachal Pradesh became a State in 1971, and the north-eastern States were created through the 1970s. Sikkim joined the Union in 1975. Goa became a State in 1987, in the same year as Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram. Three new States were created in 2000, Telangana in 2014.

The most recent changes went the other way, converting a State into Union Territories in 2019 and then merging two Union Territories in 2020. A question about the number of units therefore has an answer that depends on when it is asked, and the discipline it teaches is to attach a date to every count before repeating it.

This is a plain recall item of a kind every general-studies paper carries, and its interest lies in being time-relative. The stem asks for the number of States and Union Territories in India and prints no date, so the answer intended is the position as it stood when the paper was set.

The option list is built to test both numbers independently. Two of the four options give twenty-nine States and two give twenty-eight; two give seven Union Territories and two give six. A candidate who is sure of only one of the two figures still has a choice of two options and gains nothing.

For a reader working through this paper now, the useful exercise is to notice that the correct present-day pair — twenty-eight and eight — is not offered at all. That is a general feature of older question papers: counts, rankings, ministry names and scheme figures age, and the study value of such an item lies in the sequence of changes rather than in the single number. A candidate preparing today should be able to say not only what the counts are now but when each of them last moved, because that is the form in which the question is likely to be set again.

Key facts

At the time of this paper the Union had 29 States and 7 Union Territories.
Telangana was created on 2 June 2014 under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, taking the number of States from 28 to 29.
The seven Union Territories were the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, the National Capital Territory of Delhi, Lakshadweep and Puducherry.
Delhi is a Union Territory with a legislative assembly, styled the National Capital Territory since 1991; Puducherry likewise has an assembly. Neither is a State.
The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 took effect on 31 October 2019, replacing one State with two Union Territories.
Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu were merged into a single Union Territory with effect from 26 January 2020, since when the counts have been 28 States and 8 Union Territories.

Study next

The First Schedule of the Constitution and Article 3, which lets Parliament form new States and alter areas, boundaries and names.The States Reorganisation Act, 1956 and the linguistic reorganisation of the Union.Article 239AA and the special constitutional position of the National Capital Territory of Delhi.The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 and the creation of the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.Time-relative general-knowledge items generally: counts, rankings and scheme figures that must be learned with the date on which they last changed.

Common traps

Answering with today’s figures. The present pair, 28 and 8, is not among the options.
Leaving Delhi out of the count of Union Territories because it has an assembly and a chief minister.
Remembering the pre-2014 pair, 28 and 7, which was correct for the fourteen years before Telangana was created.
Being satisfied by recognising one of the two numbers; the option set offers each right figure alongside a wrong one.

Counts of this kind recur in EPFO papers because they are quick to set and simple to assess, and they are almost always printed without a date, so the answer is the position at the time of the sitting. The option list will pair each correct figure with an incorrect one so that half-knowledge yields nothing, and it will usually include the figures that were right a few years earlier, since that is what a candidate revising from an old book will carry. The way to prepare is to learn the changes rather than the totals — which State was created when, which reorganisation took effect on which date — because from the sequence any year’s total can be reconstructed, and questions on the reorganisation Acts themselves are set just as often.

Related PYQs

EPFO_APFC_2016_Q28

Amongst the following, who is the latest recipient of the 'Bharat Ratna' award ?

(a) Sachin Tendulkar
(b) Atal Bihari Vajpayee
(c) Amartya Sen
(d) A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

Answer(b) Atal Bihari Vajpayee

The paper’s other time-relative item, which asks for the latest recipient of an award and is likewise answered as of the year of the sitting.

EPFO_APFC_2016_Q15

Which of the following is not true of the Western Ghats ?

(a) UNESCO declared 39 places in the Western Ghats as 'World Heritage Sites' in 2012
(b) It is one of the eight hottest hotspots of biological diversity in the world
(c) It has two reserves and thirteen national parks
(d) ONGC surveys have recently found huge oil reserves

Answer(d) ONGC surveys have recently found huge oil reserves

A geography item from the same stretch of the paper where the numbers printed in the options — of sites, reserves and parks — are themselves what has to be judged.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
Which of the following Union Territories has a legislative assembly of its own ?
- (a)Lakshadweep
- (b)Chandigarh
- (c)Puducherry
- (d)Andaman and Nicobar Islands
Answer(c) Puducherry — it and the National Capital Territory of Delhi are the Union Territories with legislative assemblies. Lakshadweep, Chandigarh and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are administered by an administrator appointed by the President and have no legislature.
practice — not a real PYQ
Which State was the most recent to be created before the sitting of this paper ?
- (a)Uttarakhand
- (b)Chhattisgarh
- (c)Jharkhand
- (d)Telangana
Answer(d) Telangana — created on 2 June 2014 from ten districts of Andhra Pradesh. Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand were all created in the year 2000, which took the number of States to twenty-eight.

Why