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 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

Why

Correct — A, (a) RGSEAG. The acronym stands for the Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls, better known by its programme name SABLA, and the age band printed in the stem is its own: girls of 11–18 years.

The scheme was introduced by the Ministry of Women and Child Development in 2010-11 and taken up from 1 April 2011 in a selected set of districts, on a pilot basis, using the anganwadi centre of the Integrated Child Development Services as its delivery point. It was not built from nothing: two earlier programmes for the same age group, the Kishori Shakti Yojana and the Nutrition Programme for Adolescent Girls, were merged into it with the content enriched.

What makes it the answer to a stem asking about all-round development and self-reliance is the breadth of what it sets out to do. Its objectives are to enable adolescent girls to develop themselves and be empowered; to improve their nutritional and health status; to spread awareness of health, hygiene, nutrition, adolescent reproductive and sexual health, and family and child care; to upgrade home-based skills and life skills and link the girls to the National Skill Development Programme for vocational skills; and to bring out-of-school adolescent girls back into formal or non-formal education. Nutrition, health, information, skills and schooling in one package is precisely 'all-round development', and the vocational-training and life-skills components are the 'making them self-reliant' half of the stem.

The age band is also the discriminator. Adolescence, for the purposes of these schemes, is taken to run from 11 to 18 years, which is the window between the Integrated Child Development Services age group of 0-6 years and the adult maternity-benefit schemes that begin at 19. A candidate who fixes those three bands in place can sort most Ministry of Women and Child Development schemes on the age criterion alone.

Why the others are wrong

(b)IGMSY — IGMSY is the Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana, a conditional maternity benefit scheme of the Ministry of Women and Child Development. It gives a cash transfer to pregnant and lactating women of 19 years and above, in instalments tied to conditions such as registration of pregnancy, ante-natal check-ups and immunisation of the child, the purpose being to compensate for wage loss and to improve maternal and child nutrition. Its beneficiaries are therefore adults and its subject is maternity, not adolescence — the age floor of 19 years is set precisely where the SABLA band ends. It was later restructured as the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana.
(c)NMEW — NMEW is the National Mission for Empowerment of Women, launched in 2010 and also referred to as Mission Poorna Shakti. It is not a benefit scheme with individual beneficiaries at all; it is a convergence mission, set up so that the many women-related programmes scattered across different ministries and departments could be brought into a single framework at the State and district level, with resource centres to coordinate them. A mission whose output is inter-sectoral coordination cannot be described as aiming at the all-round development of a specific age cohort, which is what the stem asks for.
(d)RMK — RMK is the Rashtriya Mahila Kosh, the National Credit Fund for Women, set up in 1993 under the Ministry of Women and Child Development. It is a micro-credit institution: it lends to intermediary organisations — non-governmental organisations, women's federations, cooperatives — which on-lend to poor women for income-generating activity. Its instrument is credit and its beneficiaries are adult women who need working capital, so it addresses economic self-reliance in a narrow financial sense and has nothing to do with the nutrition, health, education and life-skills package the stem describes.

Concept

The Ministry of Women and Child Development runs its schemes along a life-cycle, and the schemes sort cleanly by the age or status of the beneficiary. The Integrated Child Development Services covers children of 0-6 years, along with pregnant and lactating mothers, through the anganwadi centre. The Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls, SABLA, covers girls of 11-18 years, merging the earlier Kishori Shakti Yojana and Nutrition Programme for Adolescent Girls, and delivering nutrition, iron and folic acid supplementation, health check-ups, health and nutrition education, counselling on adolescent reproductive and sexual health and on family and child care, life-skills education, vocational training linked to the National Skill Development Programme, and mainstreaming of out-of-school girls into education. Maternity benefit schemes begin at 19 years. Alongside these sit the instruments that are not age-based at all — the Rashtriya Mahila Kosh as a micro-credit fund, the National Mission for Empowerment of Women as a convergence platform, and the shelter, helpline and protection services. Knowing the age band, the delivery platform and the instrument of each scheme answers most questions in this block without recalling a single circular.

EPFO sets acronym-recognition items on welfare schemes because an Enforcement Officer works inside exactly this world of social-security programmes and has to keep them straight. The stem is generous: it hands over the age group and the twin aims of all-round development and self-reliance, which are close to the scheme's own objectives as written. The habit rewarded is to expand each acronym before choosing, because three of these four expand into names that announce their own beneficiary — maternity, women, women's credit — and only one announces adolescent girls.

Key facts

RGSEAG is the Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls, known as SABLA, run by the Ministry of Women and Child Development.
It covers adolescent girls of 11-18 years and was taken up from 1 April 2011, on a pilot basis in a selected set of districts.
It merged the earlier Kishori Shakti Yojana and the Nutrition Programme for Adolescent Girls, with enriched content.
It is delivered through the anganwadi centre of the Integrated Child Development Services.
Its objectives include self-development and empowerment, better nutrition and health, awareness of health, hygiene, nutrition and adolescent reproductive and sexual health, home-based and life skills, vocational skills linked to the National Skill Development Programme, and mainstreaming out-of-school girls into education.
IGMSY, the Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana, is a conditional maternity benefit scheme for pregnant and lactating women of 19 years and above.
NMEW, the National Mission for Empowerment of Women, launched in 2010, is a convergence platform for women-related programmes across ministries.
RMK, the Rashtriya Mahila Kosh, set up in 1993, provides micro-credit to poor women through intermediary organisations.
The Integrated Child Development Services covers children of 0-6 years — the band immediately below the adolescent-girl schemes.

The Ministry's schemes sort by the age or the status of the beneficiary

0-6 years — Integrated Child Development Services→Children of 0-6 years, together with pregnant and lactating mothers, through the anganwadi centre. The band immediately below the adolescent-girl schemes, and the delivery platform the next one borrows.

11-18 years — (a) RGSEAG, or SABLA→The Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls, introduced by the Ministry of Women and Child Development in 2010-11 and taken up from 1 April 2011 on a pilot basis in selected districts. The age band printed in the stem is its own.

Why it answers both halves of the stem→Nutrition, iron and folic acid supplementation, health check-ups, awareness of health, hygiene, nutrition and adolescent reproductive and sexual health, home-based and life skills, vocational training linked to the National Skill Development Programme, and mainstreaming of out-of-school girls back into education. It merged the earlier Kishori Shakti Yojana and Nutrition Programme for Adolescent Girls.

19 years and above — (b) IGMSY→The Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana, a conditional maternity benefit paid to pregnant and lactating women in instalments tied to registration of pregnancy, ante-natal check-ups and immunisation. Its age floor of 19 sits exactly where the SABLA band ends. It was later restructured as the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana.

No age band — (c) NMEW→The National Mission for Empowerment of Women, launched in 2010 and also called Mission Poorna Shakti. Not a benefit scheme with individual beneficiaries at all, but a convergence mission, so that women-related programmes scattered across ministries could be brought into one framework at State and district level.

No age band — (d) RMK→The Rashtriya Mahila Kosh, the National Credit Fund for Women, set up in 1993. A micro-credit institution that lends to intermediary organisations — non-governmental organisations, women's federations, cooperatives — which on-lend to poor women for income-generating activity.

Study next

Integrated Child Development Services — components, the anganwadi worker's role and the beneficiary categoriesMaternity benefit schemes and their conditionalities, and the Maternity Benefit Act as the statutory counterpartBeti Bachao Beti Padhao and the sex-ratio-at-birth objectiveThe National Skill Development Programme and how welfare schemes link into itHow these schemes were later restructured into umbrella missions, and why umbrella restructuring makes older scheme names examinable

Common traps

Choosing a scheme by the word 'women' in its expansion when the stem specifies an adolescent age band.
Confusing the 11-18 adolescent band with the 0-6 band of the Integrated Child Development Services or the 19-and-above floor of the maternity benefit schemes.
Reading 'self-reliant' as a signal for a credit scheme and marking the micro-credit fund; self-reliance here comes through skills and education.
Treating a convergence mission as a beneficiary-level scheme.

Welfare-scheme items in EPFO papers come in three forms: expand the acronym, name the beneficiary group or age band, and name the implementing ministry. All three are answered by a single line held for each scheme — who it is for, what it gives, and who runs it. Age bands are the most frequently tested discriminator in the women-and-child block, which is why the ICDS band appears on the 2023 EO/AO paper as a question in its own right.

Related PYQs

EPFO_EOAO_2023_Q106

The beneficiaries under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme are children in the age group of :

(a) 0 - 6 years
(b) 0 - 3 years
(c) 3 - 6 years
(d) 6 - 15 years

Answer(a) 0 - 6 years

The age band immediately below this one, asked on the 2023 EO/AO paper — the beneficiary age group under the Integrated Child Development Services, which is also the platform through which SABLA is delivered.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
The Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls (SABLA) was formed by merging which two earlier programmes?
- (a)Kishori Shakti Yojana and the Nutrition Programme for Adolescent Girls
- (b)Integrated Child Development Services and the Mid-Day Meal Scheme
- (c)Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana and Rashtriya Mahila Kosh
- (d)National Mission for Empowerment of Women and Balika Samriddhi Yojana
Answer(a) Kishori Shakti Yojana and the Nutrition Programme for Adolescent Girls
practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following provides micro-credit to poor women through intermediary organisations?
- (a)RGSEAG
- (b)IGMSY
- (c)NMEW
- (d)RMK
Answer(d) RMK

Why