EPFO EO/AO 2023 General Ability Test · Question 114 of 120

Correct — D, (d) Statement I is incorrect but statement II is correct. This is the last of the paper's four Statement I and Statement II items, and the option set is the same as on the other three: (a) both correct with the second explaining the first; (b) both correct but the second not the correct explanation of the first, the word not printed in bold italics because it alone separates (b) from (a); (c) the first correct and the second not; (d) the first not correct and the second correct. Score truth first. Statement I is incorrect, and it fails on one number. The Government of India does mandate the packaging of 100 per cent of food grains in jute bags, but the reservation for sugar is 20 per cent, not 100 per cent. The two commodities are treated differently and always have been, precisely because the sugar industry has resisted a full reservation while food grain procurement, being a Government operation, can absorb one. A candidate who reads the statement quickly sees the familiar 100 per cent food grains figure, carries it across to sugar and accepts the whole sentence. The reservation norms are reviewed and approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs for each jute year, which runs from 1 July to 30 June, and the norms approved in the period around this paper were 100 per cent of food grains and 20 per cent of sugar. Statement II is correct. Parliament enacted the Jute Packaging Materials (Compulsory Use in Packing Commodities) Act, 1987, which provides for the compulsory use of jute packaging material in the supply and distribution of certain commodities. It is the statute under which the reservation is made, and the annual notification of percentages is issued under its authority. One statement false and the other true gives option (d), and the explanation limb is never reached. It is worth noticing, though, what the item was built to test. Had statement I named the correct percentages, statement II would have been a good explanation of it, since the Act is the legal basis for the mandate. The examiner has taken a genuine explanatory pair and broken it by altering a single figure, which is the most economical way to build an Assertion-Reason item and the reason each statement must be checked on its own facts before the relationship between them is considered.

• (a)Both statement I and statement II are correct and statement II is the correct explanation for statement I — This is the option the item is designed to attract, because the relationship it describes is the right one: the Act of 1987 is indeed the legal basis for the packaging mandate, so if statement I were accurate, statement II would explain it. The trouble is entirely in statement I, which puts sugar at 100 per cent when the reservation for sugar is 20 per cent. On Assertion-Reason items an explanation that fits well is not a reason to skip the factual check; if anything it is a reason to make the check more carefully, because a well-fitting explanation is the bait.
• (b)Both statement I and statement II are correct and statement II is not the correct explanation for statement I — The word not is printed here in bold italics, and it carries the whole difference between this option and (a): both agree that the two statements are true and differ only on the explanatory link. This option fails twice over. Statement I is not correct, so the pair never reaches the explanation limb; and had the pair got there, the link would have held rather than failed, since the Act is exactly what makes the packaging compulsory. A candidate who reasons that a statute and a percentage are different kinds of fact, and therefore that one cannot explain the other, has mistaken the form of the statements for their content.
• (c)Statement I is correct but statement II is incorrect — This reverses both judgments. It accepts the 100 per cent figure for sugar, which is wrong, and rejects the existence of the Jute Packaging Materials (Compulsory Use in Packing Commodities) Act, 1987, which is a real statute and the foundation of the entire reservation policy. The option might attract a candidate who has heard that the packaging mandate is decided every year by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs and has concluded that it must rest on executive decision rather than legislation. Both are true at once: the Act supplies the power and the annual approval fixes the percentages under it.

The Jute Packaging Materials (Compulsory Use in Packing Commodities) Act, 1987 requires that certain commodities be supplied and distributed in jute packaging material, and it empowers the Government to specify which commodities and in what proportion. Acting under it, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approves reservation norms for each jute year, the year running from 1 July to 30 June. The norms that have applied in recent jute years reserve 100 per cent of food grains and 20 per cent of sugar for packing in jute bags, and Government releases describe the packaging as being in diversified jute bags, meaning bags of improved and varied specifications rather than the traditional sacking alone. The purpose of the reservation is protective rather than commercial: it creates a guaranteed market for raw jute and for the mills that process it, at a time when synthetic packaging is cheaper. Government releases put the number of workers in jute mills and ancillary units supported by the policy at about 3.7 lakh, alongside the livelihoods of several lakh farming families, and put the Government's annual purchase of jute sacking bags for packing food grains at roughly ₹ 9,000 crore, with the reservation absorbing a large majority of the country's raw jute production. Jute is grown mainly in the eastern States, with West Bengal dominant, and the crop is supported institutionally by the National Jute Board and by the Jute Corporation of India, which operates the price support scheme.

Questions on this topic sit at the meeting point of the economy and government-policy blocks of the EO/AO General Ability Test, and they are attractive to an examiner because the policy contains a pair of numbers that look symmetrical but are not. The percentage for food grains and the percentage for sugar are different, and the difference is the whole question. This is a specific instance of the general defect the paper repeatedly probes, which is a true figure attached to a slightly wider claim than it supports. The habit rewarded is to store the two numbers as a pair rather than as one figure, and to be suspicious of any statement that applies a single percentage to two different commodities.

• The Jute Packaging Materials (Compulsory Use in Packing Commodities) Act, 1987 provides for compulsory use of jute packaging in the supply and distribution of certain commodities.
• Reservation norms are approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs for each jute year, which runs from 1 July to 30 June.
• The norms in force around the time of this paper reserved 100 per cent of food grains and 20 per cent of sugar for packing in jute bags.
• The two percentages are different; the food grains figure cannot be carried across to sugar.
• Government releases describe the packaging requirement as being in diversified jute bags.
• The policy is stated to support about 3.7 lakh workers in jute mills and ancillary units, besides several lakh farming families.
• The Government's annual purchase of jute sacking bags for packing food grains is put at roughly ₹ 9,000 crore.
• Jute is concentrated in the eastern States, with West Bengal dominant; the National Jute Board and the Jute Corporation of India are the supporting institutions.

• Carrying the 100 per cent food grains figure across to sugar; the sugar reservation is 20 per cent.
• Assuming that because an explanation fits neatly the assertion it explains must be accurate.
• Treating the annual Cabinet approval and the 1987 Act as alternatives; the approval is made under the Act.
• Confusing the jute year, which runs from 1 July to 30 June, with the financial year.
• Reading 'diversified jute bags' as a different scheme rather than as a description of the bags required.

This theme reaches EO/AO papers as a Statement I and Statement II item like this one, as a two-statement code item on the reservation percentages, or as a single-line question naming the Act or the responsible body. The examiner's standard device is to alter one percentage in an otherwise accurate sentence, which is why a policy carrying two different numbers for two commodities should always be memorised as a pair. Where a question names a statute, check the year and the exact subject matter as well, since those are the other two details commonly swapped.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under the reservation norms approved for recent jute years, the proportion of sugar required to be packed in jute bags is :

  • (a)100 per cent
  • (b)50 per cent
  • (c)20 per cent
  • (d)Nil

  Answer(c) 20 per cent

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The compulsory use of jute packaging material in the supply and distribution of certain commodities is provided for by :

  • (a)The Essential Commodities Act, 1955
  • (b)The Jute Packaging Materials (Compulsory Use in Packing Commodities) Act, 1987
  • (c)The Jute Manufactures Development Council Act, 1983
  • (d)The Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006

  Answer(b) The Jute Packaging Materials (Compulsory Use in Packing Commodities) Act, 1987