MPPSC 2025 Prelims Paper-I · Question 39 of 100

Correct — A, 12.22%. The commission's final key marks 12.22% as education's share of Madhya Pradesh's total expenditure budget for 2023-24. Education is one of the largest single sectoral allocations in the MP budget, and its share of the total budget has stayed in the low teens across recent years — so 12.22% is the figure to carry, the share the commission's key accepts.

• (b)10.5% — Understates the allocation — a round number below the share the official key records for 2023-24.
• (c)18.0% — This is the figure that circulates in some secondary/coaching solutions for this question, but it is not what the commission's final key accepts. Do not carry it into the exam hall.
• (d)15.0% — Tempting because the average share that Indian states allocate to education is close to 15% (PRS Legislative Research puts it at about 14.8% of expenditure). That is an all-states benchmark, not MP's own share of its total expenditure budget in 2023-24.

A state budget is read in shares: what fraction of total expenditure goes to each sector. Education, health, agriculture, rural development and irrigation are the recurring heads, and in almost every state education takes the single largest sectoral slice. Because the shares are percentages, both the numerator (what counts as 'education' — school education alone, or school plus higher and technical education) and the denominator (total budget including debt repayment, or expenditure net of it) decide the number you get.

That definitional point is why students meet conflicting percentages for the very same year: some compilations exclude debt repayment from the denominator and therefore report a higher share for MP in 2023-24. For an MPPSC answer, the operative number is the one the commission's key accepts — 12.22% of the total expenditure budget — which is how the figure appears in the state's own budget presentation. Learn the number with the label attached ('share of the total expenditure budget'), not as a floating statistic.

• MPPSC's official key: education = 12.22% of Madhya Pradesh's total expenditure budget in 2023-24
• Education is typically the largest single sectoral allocation in a state budget, ahead of health and agriculture
• All-states benchmark: PRS Legislative Research puts the average share allocated to education at roughly 14.8% of state expenditure
• Published shares for the same year can differ because of the denominator (total budget with debt repayment vs expenditure net of it) and the scope of 'education' (school only vs school + higher + technical)

• Quoting a percentage from a coaching key rather than the commission's own key
• Confusing 'share of the state budget' with 'share of GDP/GSDP' — the NEP's 6% target is of GDP, a completely different denominator
• Comparing budget estimates in one year with revised estimates or actuals in another

MPPSC lifts one number from the latest MP budget or Economic Survey each year (a sector's share, a scheme's provision, the size of the budget). UPSC almost never asks a state's budget share — it asks the concept behind it: FRBM, deficits, and the NEP's 6%-of-GDP goal.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The National Education Policy 2020 reiterates the target of raising public investment in education to what share of GDP?

  • (a)3%
  • (b)4.5%
  • (c)6%
  • (d)10%

  Answer(c) 6% of GDP — a target first recommended by the Kothari Commission and repeated by NEP 2020.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Budget analysts often report state spending as 'total expenditure excluding debt repayment'. The main reason is that:

  • (a)repayment of borrowings is not spending on public services, so excluding it makes sectoral shares comparable
  • (b)debt repayment is not part of the state budget at all
  • (c)it makes total expenditure equal to the fiscal deficit
  • (d)the Constitution forbids showing debt repayment in the budget

  Answer(a) Debt repayment returns borrowed money; leaving it out gives a cleaner measure of spending on services.