Enforcement Officer / Accounts Officer (EO/AO) 2020 recruitment test, advertisement 421. Transcribed from the Commission's own booklet (series A, NMJX-U-GTA); answer as per the official UPSC final answer key. This question is in Part B. Answer last reviewed 24 August 2026.

According to the Economic Survey 2020 – 21, which one of the following will be India's real GDP growth in the year 2021 – 22 ?

(a)9%
(b)11%
(c)13%
(d)15%

Answer

Why

Correct — B, (b) 11%.

The Economic Survey 2020–21 projected India’s REAL GDP growth for 2021–22 at 11.0 per cent. Its own words, in the ‘State of the Economy’ chapter of Volume 2, are: ‘After an estimated 7.7 per cent pandemic-driven contraction in 2020–21, India’s real GDP is projected to record a growth of 11.0 percent in 2021–22 and nominal GDP by 15.4 per cent.’ The chapter’s summary adds the claim the figure was written to make: ‘The estimated real GDP growth for FY 2022 at 11 per cent is the highest since independence.’

The question is asking what the Survey SAID, and that is how the item should be read and answered. The Survey was tabled on 29 January 2021, a day before the Union Budget, and it was prepared under the Chief Economic Adviser Krishnamurthy V. Subramanian on the theme ‘Saving Lives and Livelihoods’. Its projection was made at a particular moment, with the economy emerging from the first pandemic year, and it is a forecast rather than an outturn. What the item tests is whether a candidate can attach the right number to the right document.

One piece of context explains why the Survey could project a double-digit figure at all. It was measuring recovery from a deep contraction — output had fallen 23.9 per cent in the first quarter of 2020–21 and 7.5 per cent in the second — and the Survey described the recovery as V-shaped. A rebound calculated on a base that has already collapsed produces a large growth rate without the economy having returned to where it was, and the Survey’s own framing of a ‘once-in-a-century crisis’ is what makes the number intelligible.

The same paragraph of the Survey noted that the International Monetary Fund’s own estimate for India in 2021–22 was 11.5 per cent, and 6.8 per cent for 2022–23.

Why the others are wrong

(a)9% — No projection in the Economic Survey 2020–21 corresponds to 9 per cent. The figure is on the list because it is the plausible single-digit number: a candidate who has not read the Survey but knows that Indian growth rates run in the range of six to eight per cent will reach for the nearest number above that band, reasoning that a recovery year must be a little higher than usual. That reasoning fails here precisely because 2021–22 was not an ordinary year in the projection — it was the rebound from a contraction, which is why the Survey put the figure in double digits and called it the highest since independence. When a question quotes a specific document, the answer is a number printed in that document, not a number derived from a general sense of what is normal.
(c)13% — Nothing in the Economic Survey 2020–21 gives 13 per cent for real GDP growth in 2021–22. It sits between the correct real figure of 11 per cent and the nominal figure of about 15 per cent, and that is exactly its function in the option set: with four evenly spaced numbers, a candidate who half-remembers ‘somewhere in the low teens’ has no way to choose. This is a standard construction on data questions, and it is worth recognising, because it tells the candidate that approximate recall will not be enough. Either the figure is known exactly or the item is a guess.
(d)15% — This is the sharpest distractor on the list, because it is a real number from the same sentence of the Survey — but it is the NOMINAL figure, not the real one. The Survey projected nominal GDP growth of 15.4 per cent for 2021–22 alongside real growth of 11.0 per cent. The difference between the two is the price effect: real growth measures output at constant prices, stripping out inflation, while nominal growth measures it at current prices and therefore includes inflation. A candidate who remembers the sentence but not which half of it answers the question will land here. The stem says ‘real GDP growth’, and the word ‘real’ is doing all the work.

Concept

REAL against NOMINAL is the distinction this item is built on, and it is worth getting exactly right because it recurs across economics questions.

Nominal GDP measures output at CURRENT prices — the prices actually prevailing in the year measured. Real GDP measures the same output at CONSTANT prices, those of a chosen base year, so that changes in it reflect changes in the quantity of goods and services produced rather than changes in their prices. The gap between the two growth rates is the effect of the price level, and the ratio of nominal to real GDP is the GDP deflator, the broadest measure of inflation in an economy. So a projection of 11.0 per cent real and 15.4 per cent nominal implies an expected rise in the general price level of roughly four percentage points.

About the document. The ECONOMIC SURVEY is prepared by the Economic Division of the Department of Economic Affairs in the Ministry of Finance, under the Chief Economic Adviser, and is tabled in Parliament shortly before the Union Budget. It is a review of the year’s developments and an outlook, not a policy document, and its projections carry no legal force. The Survey 2020–21 was tabled on 29 January 2021, its Chief Economic Adviser was Krishnamurthy V. Subramanian, and its theme was ‘Saving Lives and Livelihoods amidst a Once-in-a-Century Crisis’.

About the year it described. Output contracted 23.9 per cent in the first quarter of 2020–21 and 7.5 per cent in the second, and the Survey characterised the subsequent recovery as V-shaped — a sharp fall followed by a sharp rebound, as opposed to a U-shape with a prolonged trough, an L-shape with no recovery, or a W-shape with a second dip. The Survey estimated the contraction for 2020–21 as a whole at 7.7 per cent, and it is against that base that the 11.0 per cent projection for the following year was made.

One caution about arithmetic that examiners exploit: a fall of 7.7 per cent followed by a rise of 11.0 per cent does not return an economy to where it started plus 3.3 per cent, because the two percentages are calculated on different bases. Growth rates measured off a collapsed base overstate the recovery in level terms.

This item belongs to the polity, governance and schemes block of Part B, and it is a current-affairs question of the kind that has a hard shelf life: it asks for a number printed in one named document from one particular year.

That is how the item must be studied. The stem names the Economic Survey 2020–21, so the answer is what that Survey projected, and nothing that happened afterwards changes what the question is asking. Later data revise every forecast, but a question quoting a document is a question about the document.

The shape of the option set repays attention. All four options are round percentages, evenly spaced two points apart, and one of them — 15 per cent — is a real figure from the same sentence of the Survey with a different qualifier attached to it. This is the most common way of building a distractor on an economics data question: take the correct sentence and offer the wrong number from within it. The defence is to read the qualifier in the stem before looking at the options, and here the qualifier is the single word ‘real’.

For an EPFO candidate the Economic Survey is worth reading at the level of its headline numbers and chapter themes rather than in full: the growth projections, the fiscal deficit, the inflation and current-account figures, and the two or three arguments the Survey chose to make that year. That is the level at which these papers test it.

Key facts

The Economic Survey 2020–21 projected India’s real GDP growth for 2021–22 at 11.0 per cent, describing it as the highest since independence.
It projected nominal GDP growth for the same year at 15.4 per cent.
It estimated the contraction in 2020–21 at 7.7 per cent.
The Survey was tabled on 29 January 2021, a day before the Union Budget; the Chief Economic Adviser was Krishnamurthy V. Subramanian.
Its theme was ‘Saving Lives and Livelihoods amidst a Once-in-a-Century Crisis’.
It recorded a contraction of 23.9 per cent in the first quarter of 2020–21 and 7.5 per cent in the second, and described the recovery as V-shaped.
The same passage cited the International Monetary Fund’s estimates for India of 11.5 per cent for 2021–22 and 6.8 per cent for 2022–23.
Real GDP is measured at constant prices and nominal GDP at current prices; the ratio between them is the GDP deflator.
The Economic Survey is prepared by the Economic Division of the Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, under the Chief Economic Adviser, and is a review and outlook rather than a policy document.

Real against nominal — both numbers sit in the same sentence of the Survey

Real GDP growth, 2021–22 : 11.0 per cent→The Survey’s own words: ‘After an estimated 7.7 per cent pandemic-driven contraction in 2020–21, India’s real GDP is projected to record a growth of 11.0 percent in 2021–22 and nominal GDP by 15.4 per cent.’ It called 11 per cent the highest since independence. Real GDP is measured at CONSTANT prices, so it tracks the quantity of output rather than its price.

Nominal GDP growth, 2021–22 : 15.4 per cent→The sharpest distractor, because it is a genuine number from the same sentence — but measured at CURRENT prices. The gap of roughly four percentage points between the two is the expected rise in the general price level, and the ratio of nominal to real GDP is the GDP deflator.

Why a double-digit figure was possible at all→Output had fallen 23.9 per cent in the first quarter of 2020–21 and 7.5 per cent in the second, and the Survey described the recovery as V-shaped. A rebound calculated on a base that has already collapsed produces a large growth rate without the economy having returned to where it was.

9 per cent→No projection in the Survey corresponds to it. It is the plausible single-digit number for a candidate who knows Indian growth runs at six to eight per cent and reaches for the next number above that band — reasoning that fails precisely because this was a rebound year.

13 per cent→Nothing in the Survey gives it. It sits between the real figure of 11 and the nominal figure of about 15, which is exactly its function: with four evenly spaced numbers, a candidate who half-remembers ‘somewhere in the low teens’ has no way to choose.

The document itself→Tabled on 29 January 2021, a day before the Union Budget, prepared by the Economic Division of the Department of Economic Affairs under Chief Economic Adviser Krishnamurthy V. Subramanian, on the theme ‘Saving Lives and Livelihoods amidst a Once-in-a-Century Crisis’. The same passage cited the International Monetary Fund’s estimates for India of 11.5 per cent for 2021–22 and 6.8 per cent for 2022–23.

Study next

National income accounting: GDP, GNP, NNP, GVA at basic prices, and GDP at market prices.Real against nominal measurement, base years, the GDP deflator, and how it differs from the Consumer and Wholesale Price Indices.The Economic Survey and the Union Budget — who prepares each, when they are tabled, and what force each carries.The shapes of economic recovery — V, U, L, W and K — and what evidence distinguishes them.Fiscal policy in the pandemic year: the fiscal deficit path, the Atmanirbhar Bharat packages, and the FRBM framework.The institutions that publish growth estimates for India — the National Statistical Office, the Reserve Bank of India, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank — and why their numbers differ.

Common traps

Answering with the nominal figure when the stem asks for the real one, or the other way round. The word ‘real’ or ‘nominal’ in the stem decides the answer.
Replacing the Survey’s projection with the growth rate later reported for the year. A question naming a document asks what the document said.
Confusing the projection for 2021–22 with the estimated contraction for 2020–21.
Treating a large rebound percentage as a return to the earlier level of output. Growth measured off a collapsed base overstates the recovery in level terms.
Attributing the number to the Budget rather than to the Economic Survey. They are separate documents tabled on consecutive days.
Mixing the Survey’s own projection with the International Monetary Fund figure quoted in the same paragraph.

Economic Survey items on EPFO EO/AO papers are single-number recall: a growth projection, a fiscal deficit figure, an inflation rate, or the theme or cover subject of a particular year’s Survey. The option sets are built either from evenly spaced round numbers or, as here, from other genuine numbers in the same sentence with a different qualifier. Because the questions are tied to a named year, the way to prepare is a one-page sheet per Survey carrying the growth projection, the fiscal numbers, the theme and the two or three arguments the Survey was known for — not a reading of the volumes.

Related PYQs

EPFO_EOAO_2020_Q39Open & attempt →

Which one of the following is the acronym for the word ‘NITI’ in NITI Aayog ?

(a) National Integration and Transformation of India
(b) National Institution for Transforming India
(c) National Institution for Technological India
(d) National Institution for Trust in India

Answer(b) National Institution for Transforming India

The NITI Aayog item that follows it in the same block — the institution that publishes much of the government’s own analysis alongside the Economic Survey.

EPFO_EOAO_2020_Q40Open & attempt →

Which one of the following is not a correct description of the Namami Gange Programme ?

(a) It is an initiative of the Ministry of Jal Shakti.
(b) It primarily covers villages in the States of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha.
(c) It aims to make villages on the banks of the river Ganga open defecation-free.
(d) It aims to transform some villages on the banks of the river Ganga as Ganga Grams.

Answer(b) It primarily covers villages in the States of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha.

The Namami Gange item completing this block, the other question here tied to a named government document or programme rather than to a general principle.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
The Economic Survey 2020 – 21 described India's post-pandemic economic recovery as being of which shape ?
- (a)U-shaped
- (b)V-shaped
- (c)L-shaped
- (d)W-shaped
Answer(b) V-shaped — the Survey used the term repeatedly, contrasting the 23.9 per cent contraction of the first quarter of 2020–21 with the 7.5 per cent decline of the second and the recovery across the key economic indicators that followed.
practice — not a real PYQ
If an economy's nominal GDP grows by 15 per cent in a year while its real GDP grows by 11 per cent, the difference is accounted for principally by which one of the following ?
- (a)The rise in the general price level
- (b)The growth of the population
- (c)The increase in exports
- (d)The depreciation of the currency
Answer(a) The rise in the general price level — nominal GDP is measured at current prices and real GDP at constant prices, so the gap between the two growth rates reflects inflation as captured by the GDP deflator.

Why