Enforcement Officer / Accounts Officer (EO/AO) 2017 recruitment test. Transcribed from the Commission's own booklet (series A, GRS-A-TNS); answer as per the official UPSC final answer key. This question is in Part B. Answer last reviewed 24 August 2026.

Which one of the following bodies has formulated the ‘National Student Startup Policy’, launched by the President of India in November 2016?

(a)UGC
(b)NCERT
(c)AIU
(d)AICTE

Answer

Why

Correct — D, (d) AICTE. The National Student Startup Policy was drawn up by the All India Council for Technical Education, and it was launched by the President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee, on 16 November 2016 at the second Visitor's Conference held at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

The policy's stated ambition is large: to create one hundred thousand technology-based student start-ups and a million employment opportunities within ten years. Its method is to build the entrepreneurial machinery inside technical institutions rather than outside them — an entrepreneurship ecosystem on campus, incubation and pre-incubation support, mentoring, credit for entrepreneurial work in the academic calendar, and partnerships between institutions so that a student in one college can use facilities in another.

The reason AICTE is the right answer, and the reason a candidate can reach it without having read the news item, is that the policy's constituency is exactly AICTE's constituency. AICTE was made a statutory body by the All India Council for Technical Education Act, 1987, and its remit is the planning and coordinated development of the technical education system — engineering, technology, management, pharmacy, architecture and applied arts. Those are the institutions where a technology start-up policy has to operate, and AICTE is the body that approves them, sets their norms and can direct them. None of the other three has that reach over engineering colleges.

The timing also sits inside a wider push. The Startup India Action Plan had been announced in January 2016, and the same period saw agreement to set up start-up support hubs in national technical institutions — the subject of question 54 later in this same paper. A student startup policy issued by the technical-education regulator is the campus-level piece of that programme.

Why the others are wrong

(a)UGC — The University Grants Commission is a statutory body under the University Grants Commission Act, 1956, and its functions are the coordination and determination of standards in university education and the disbursement of grants to universities and colleges. Its jurisdiction runs to universities and general degree colleges, not to the technical-education system, which is precisely why a separate council was created for the latter. The UGC does frame regulations that touch research and academic standards, and a candidate who reasons 'higher education, therefore UGC' will land here — but a policy aimed at technology start-ups in engineering institutions belongs to the regulator of engineering institutions.
(b)NCERT — The National Council of Educational Research and Training works on school education. It is an autonomous body that advises the Union and State Governments on school education policy, prepares the National Curriculum Framework, produces school textbooks and syllabi, and runs teacher education through its Regional Institutes of Education. It has no role in higher or technical education and no relationship with student entrepreneurship in engineering colleges. The option is here as the recognisable education acronym that a candidate reaches for when unsure.
(c)AIU — The Association of Indian Universities is not a government regulator at all. It is an association of universities, and its best-known functions are granting equivalence to degrees awarded by foreign and Indian universities, coordinating inter-university sports and cultural activity, and publishing a weekly journal on higher education. It has no statutory power to make policy binding on institutions and no specific mandate over technical education. A body that cannot direct a college cannot formulate a policy that colleges must implement.

Concept

India's higher-education regulation is divided by the type of institution, and knowing the division answers a whole family of questions. The University Grants Commission, statutory under the Act of 1956, deals with universities and colleges and with grants. The All India Council for Technical Education, statutory under the Act of 1987, deals with technical education — engineering, technology, management, architecture, pharmacy, hotel management and applied arts — including approval of institutions and the setting of norms and standards. The National Council of Educational Research and Training, an autonomous body dating from 1961, is a school-education organisation: curriculum frameworks, textbooks, teacher training. The Association of Indian Universities is a membership association rather than a regulator, best known for degree equivalence and inter-university sports and culture. Against that map, the National Student Startup Policy is an AICTE document by construction: it asks technical institutions to run pre-incubation and incubation facilities, to give academic weight to entrepreneurial activity, to build mentor networks and inter-institutional partnerships, and it sets a ten-year target of a hundred thousand technology-based student start-ups and a million jobs.

This is a current-affairs item with a structural back door. A candidate who missed the November 2016 news can still reach AICTE by asking which of the four bodies could actually make engineering colleges do anything — which is the habit worth building for the whole schemes-and-institutions block. Note also what the stem gives away for free: it dates the launch to November 2016 and attributes it to the President, so a candidate who remembers the Visitor's Conference has two independent hooks. The Commission prints the policy's name inside single quotation marks and spells 'Startup' as one unhyphenated word, which is how the policy itself is titled.

Key facts

The National Student Startup Policy was formulated by the All India Council for Technical Education.
It was launched by President Pranab Mukherjee on 16 November 2016 at the second Visitor's Conference at Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Its stated target is one hundred thousand technology-based student start-ups and one million employment opportunities in ten years.
Its instruments are on-campus incubation and pre-incubation, mentoring, academic recognition of entrepreneurial work, and inter-institutional partnerships.
AICTE became a statutory body under the All India Council for Technical Education Act, 1987, and regulates technical education.
The University Grants Commission is statutory under the Act of 1956 and deals with universities, colleges and grants.
NCERT is an autonomous school-education body responsible for the National Curriculum Framework, school textbooks and teacher education.
The Association of Indian Universities is a membership association, known for degree equivalence and inter-university sports and culture, not a regulator.
The policy sits alongside the Startup India Action Plan of January 2016, whose campus component is asked about at question 54 of this same paper.

Ask which of the four could actually make engineering colleges do anything

(d) AICTE→The All India Council for Technical Education drew up the National Student Startup Policy, launched by President Pranab Mukherjee on 16 November 2016 at the second Visitor's Conference at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Statutory under the Act of 1987, it approves technical institutions, sets their norms and can direct them.

Why the constituency fits→AICTE's remit is engineering, technology, management, pharmacy, architecture and applied arts — exactly the institutions in which a technology start-up policy has to operate. None of the other three has that reach over engineering colleges.

(a) UGC→Statutory under the Act of 1956, its functions are the coordination and determination of standards in university education and the disbursement of grants. Its jurisdiction runs to universities and general degree colleges, which is precisely why a separate council was created for technical education.

(b) NCERT→A school-education body: it advises the Union and State Governments on school education policy, prepares the National Curriculum Framework, produces school textbooks and syllabi, and runs teacher education through its Regional Institutes of Education. The recognisable acronym a candidate reaches for when unsure.

(c) AIU→The Association of Indian Universities is a membership association rather than a government regulator — known for granting equivalence to degrees, coordinating inter-university sports and cultural activity, and publishing a weekly journal. A body that cannot direct a college cannot formulate a policy colleges must implement.

What the policy contains→A target of one hundred thousand technology-based student start-ups and a million employment opportunities in ten years, reached through on-campus incubation and pre-incubation, mentoring, academic recognition of entrepreneurial work, and partnerships between institutions. It sits alongside the Startup India Action Plan of January 2016.

Study next

The regulators of Indian education compared — UGC, AICTE, NCTE, MCI/NMC, BCI and what each governsStartup India Action Plan 2016 — the tax holiday, the fund of funds, the self-certification regime and the definition of a startupAtal Innovation Mission and Atal Tinkering Labs, the school-and-college end of the same pushIncubators and technology business incubators — how they are funded and what they provideThe President as Visitor of central institutions, and what the Visitor's Conference is

Common traps

Reasoning 'higher education, therefore UGC' when the policy is about engineering institutions, which AICTE regulates.
Treating the Association of Indian Universities as a regulator; it is an association of universities with no power to issue binding policy.
Confusing the National Student Startup Policy with the Startup India Action Plan — the first is an AICTE document for campuses, the second a Government of India programme for firms.
Placing NCERT anywhere in higher education; its entire remit is school education.

Schemes and policies of the 2016-17 cycle are asked in EPFO papers as 'which body', 'which ministry', 'in which year' or 'what is the target' items. The reliable preparation for each is a four-line card: who issued it, when, what it aims at numerically, and which larger programme it sits inside. Where the question asks 'which body', the shortcut is to identify whose institutions the policy binds.

Related PYQs

EPFO_EOAO_2017_Q54Open & attempt →

Startup Hubs are agreed to be set up in 1. IIITs 2. IISERs 3. NITs 4. Central Universities Select the correct answer using the code given below.

(a) 1, 2 and 3
(b) 1 and 4 only
(c) 3 and 4 only
(d) 1, 3 and 4

Answer(a) 1, 2 and 3

The campus-infrastructure half of the same push, eight questions later in this paper — which categories of national institution were to get Startup Hubs.

EPFO_EOAO_2017_Q51Open & attempt →

A StandUp enterprise can be established in 1. farming sector 2. manufacturing sector 3. service sector 4. trading sector Select the correct answer using the code given below.

(a) 1, 2 and 4
(b) 1, 3 and 4
(c) 1, 2 and 3
(d) 2, 3 and 4

Answer(d) 2, 3 and 4

The finance side of the same 2016 start-up programme in this paper — which sectors a StandUp enterprise may be set up in.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
The All India Council for Technical Education was given statutory status by an Act of Parliament in the year
- (a)1956
- (b)1961
- (c)1987
- (d)2016
Answer(c) 1987
practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following bodies has as its statutory functions the coordination and determination of standards in university education and the disbursement of grants to universities and colleges?
- (a)AICTE
- (b)UGC
- (c)NCERT
- (d)AIU
Answer(b) UGC

Why