MPPSC 2025 Prelims Paper-I · Question 28 of 100

Correct — B, to encourage students securing meritorious positions in the Class 10 and Class 12 examinations. The Raja Shankar Shah and Rani Durgavati award of the Madhya Pradesh Tribal Affairs Department is a merit prize: tribal students who place in the merit list of the Madhya Pradesh Board of Secondary Education (MPBSE) Class 10 and Class 12 board examinations are given a cash award, the largest amount going to the highest rank. Selection follows automatically from the published board merit list rather than a separate application — it is an academic-excellence incentive, not a hostel, technical-education or entrance-coaching scheme.

• (a)To provide accommodation facility for higher studies — Accommodation for tribal students is handled by a different arm of the same department — ashram schools, departmental tribal hostels and post-matric hostel/scholarship provisions. This award pays a cash prize for board-exam merit; it does not provide lodging.
• (c)To encourage technical education — The award is tied to the general Class 10 and 12 board results, not to any technical or professional stream. Support for technical/professional courses runs through separate scholarship and fee-reimbursement schemes.
• (d)To encourage students clearing national entrance examinations for further studies — Tempting, because Madhya Pradesh does run separate coaching and incentive schemes for tribal students preparing for national entrance examinations. This particular award, however, is triggered by board-examination merit positions, not by clearing an entrance test.

Madhya Pradesh's Tribal Affairs Department names most of its tribal-welfare instruments after Gondwana's historical figures. This award honours Rani Durgavati, the Gond queen of Garha-Katanga who died fighting the Mughal army of Asaf Khan in 1564, and Raja Shankar Shah of Garha-Mandla, who with his son Kunwar Raghunath Shah was executed by the British at Jabalpur on 18 September 1857. The award attached to their names is a straightforward merit incentive for Scheduled Tribe students who rank in the MPBSE Class 10 and Class 12 merit lists.

For scheme questions, ask 'what event triggers the benefit?' — here it is a place in the board merit list, which fixes the answer at (b). The other three options each describe a real category of tribal-welfare support in MP (hostels, technical education, entrance-exam coaching), so the question is really testing whether you have attached the right purpose to the right name.

• Run by the Madhya Pradesh Tribal Affairs Department; the trigger is a merit position in the MPBSE Class 10 / Class 12 board examinations.
• Selection is made from the board's published merit list — students do not normally have to apply separately.
• Rani Durgavati: Gond queen of Garha-Katanga (the Jabalpur–Mandla region); died in battle against Asaf Khan's Mughal force in 1564.
• Raja Shankar Shah of Garha-Mandla and his son Kunwar Raghunath Shah were executed by the British at Jabalpur on 18 September 1857.
• Raja Shankar Shah and Kunwar Raghunath Shah are commemorated in more than one Madhya Pradesh honour, so check which award a question means.

• More than one MP honour carries the Shankar Shah name — check whether a question means this student merit award or another.
• Assuming any scheme named after a tribal icon must be a hostel or housing scheme.
• Mixing up Rani Durgavati (Gond queen, 1564) with Rani Avantibai of Ramgarh (1857) — both are commemorated in MP scheme names.

MPPSC's Section on MP tribal affairs asks scheme-name ↔ purpose and person ↔ event. Store each named scheme with one line on its trigger (merit list, income, habitation) and one line on who the namesake was.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Rani Durgavati, after whom several Madhya Pradesh institutions and schemes are named, was the queen of which kingdom?

  • (a)Garha-Katanga
  • (b)Malwa
  • (c)Bundelkhand
  • (d)Chanderi

  Answer(a) Garha-Katanga — the Gond kingdom around present-day Jabalpur and Mandla.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Raja Shankar Shah and his son Kunwar Raghunath Shah were executed by the British in 1857 at:

  • (a)Indore
  • (b)Jabalpur
  • (c)Sagar
  • (d)Rewa

  Answer(b) Jabalpur — on 18 September 1857.