MPSC 2024 Prelims Paper-I · Question 96 of 100

Correct — option (1), '(a) – (i), (b) – (ii), (c) – (iii), (d) – (iv)'. Settle each committee on its own before looking at the grid. Dr Nitin Karmalkar, a former Vice-Chancellor of Savitribai Phule Pune University, chairs Maharashtra's committee on the implementation of the National Education Policy 2020 in the state's universities and colleges; his committee reviews what each university has done under the policy, whether it has an implementation committee of its own and how that committee is functioning — so (a) goes with (i). Nitin Karir, then Additional Chief Secretary (Revenue) of Maharashtra, was appointed a one-man committee to enquire into the deaths that followed the Maharashtra Bhushan award function held at Kharghar in Navi Mumbai on 16 April 2023, where a large open-air gathering assembled to see the award conferred on Appasaheb Dharmadhikari and a number of people died of heat stroke — so (b) goes with (ii). Sunil Pawar headed the committee that examined the working of the onion market in Maharashtra, the reason prices collapse when arrivals surge at harvest, and what could be done about it; its principal recommendation was to move all market committees to electronic auctions so that produce is not bought up at distress prices — so (c) goes with (iii). Dr K. Kasturirangan, the former ISRO chairman, chaired the committee that drafted the National Education Policy 2020 and then the national steering committee for the new curriculum frameworks that translate the policy into what is actually taught, stage by stage — so (d) goes with (iv). The pairing that results is the one printed in option (1). Note that here the straight-through pairing happens to be correct, which is a useful corrective to the opposite superstition: a neat diagonal is neither a guarantee nor a disqualification, and the columns must be settled on their content either way.

• (2)(a) – (ii), (b) – (iii), (c) – (iv), (d) – (i) — Every pairing in this option is wrong, and the one that makes it attractive is the last: it sends Dr Kasturirangan to (i), the implementation of the National Education Policy in Maharashtra. Kasturirangan is a national figure — he chaired the drafting of the policy itself and then the steering committee for the curriculum frameworks — and he has no role in a state's implementation machinery, which is what Dr Karmalkar's committee handles. The option also makes an education specialist enquire into an award ceremony and a revenue secretary study onion prices, both of which fail on the plainest test available in this question: does the person's field match the task ?
• (3)(a) – (iii), (b) – (iv), (c) – (ii), (d) – (i) — This option again places Dr Kasturirangan on the Maharashtra implementation committee and again mismatches every other pair, sending the Pune university head to the onion market and the revenue secretary to curriculum design. Two anchors dispose of it at once: the Kharghar enquiry was Nitin Karir's, and the onion committee was Sunil Pawar's. In a four-pair matching question, being certain of any two pairs normally eliminates three of the four options, and that is exactly how this one should be attacked.
• (4)(a) – (iv), (b) – (ii), (c) – (i), (d) – (iii) — This is the near miss. It gets one pair right — Nitin Karir with the Maharashtra Bhushan enquiry — and then rotates the remaining three, giving curriculum design to Dr Karmalkar, the state implementation committee to Sunil Pawar and the onion inquiry to Dr Kasturirangan. The last of those is absurd on its face once the person is known, which is the point: matching questions about committees are really questions about who a person is. The two education committees in this set are the discriminating pair, and keeping them apart — Karmalkar for Maharashtra's implementation, Kasturirangan for the national policy and its curriculum frameworks — decides the question.

Committees of inquiry and of policy design are a standing feature of Indian administration and MPSC examines them as person-to-task pairs. Four appear here and each belongs to a different strand of recent Maharashtra and national policy. The National Education Policy 2020, drafted by a committee under Dr K. Kasturirangan, replaced the policy of 1986 and set out the 5+3+3+4 school structure, the four-year undergraduate degree with multiple entry and exit points, the Academic Bank of Credits and a target of six per cent of GDP for education; Kasturirangan went on to chair the national steering committee for the curriculum frameworks that convert the policy into syllabus. Maharashtra's own machinery for putting the policy into practice in its universities and colleges is chaired by Dr Nitin Karmalkar, formerly Vice-Chancellor of Savitribai Phule Pune University. Separately, the Maharashtra Bhushan is the state's highest civilian honour; the ceremony at which it was conferred at Kharghar in April 2023 drew an enormous open-air crowd in extreme heat and a number of people died of heat stroke, and a one-man committee under Nitin Karir, then Additional Chief Secretary (Revenue), was appointed to enquire into it. And the collapse of onion prices at harvest — a chronic Maharashtra problem, since the state is the country's largest onion producer and Lasalgaon in Nashik district hosts Asia's largest onion market — was examined by a committee under Sunil Pawar, which recommended universal electronic auctioning in the market committees to stop distress sales.

This is a question about Maharashtra's recent administrative history, and it is the kind MPSC sets to reward candidates who read the state's newspapers rather than only national current affairs. The method for answering it is the general method for all matching questions: judge each left-column item independently, write the numeral against it, and only then read the option grid, because the two columns are printed side by side purely as layout. Where the items are people, the useful question is always the same — what is this person's field ? A former university vice-chancellor is paired with education, a revenue secretary with an administrative inquiry, and an agricultural marketing official with a crop market. That reasoning will not always finish the question, but it will usually reduce four options to one or two. Note the paper's own untidiness in this item: the right-hand column's third entry is printed as 'To study why the rates of onion collapse.' and is the only entry in that column carrying a full stop; the phrasing is the commission's and is reproduced as set.

• Dr Nitin Karmalkar, former Vice-Chancellor of Savitribai Phule Pune University, chairs Maharashtra's committee on the implementation of the National Education Policy 2020 in the state's higher education institutions.
• Nitin Karir, then Additional Chief Secretary (Revenue) of Maharashtra, was appointed a one-man committee to enquire into the deaths at the Maharashtra Bhushan award function at Kharghar, Navi Mumbai, on 16 April 2023.
• The Maharashtra Bhushan award at that ceremony was conferred on Appasaheb Dharmadhikari; a number of people in the open-air gathering died of heat stroke.
• The Sunil Pawar committee examined Maharashtra's onion market and the collapse of onion prices, recommending electronic auctions in all agricultural produce market committees.
• Dr K. Kasturirangan, a former chairman of ISRO, chaired the committee that drafted the National Education Policy 2020 and the national steering committee for the new curriculum frameworks under it.
• Maharashtra is India's largest onion-producing state, and Lasalgaon in Nashik district hosts Asia's largest onion market.

• Pairing Dr Kasturirangan with the Maharashtra implementation committee because his name is the one attached to the National Education Policy
• Reading the two printed columns across the page as a table of pairs
• Assuming the straight-through pairing must be a trap; here it happens to be the answer, and the content is what decides
• Forgetting that a person's professional field is usually the fastest test of whether a pairing is plausible

MPSC regularly sets matching questions on state committees and their terms of reference, drawing on the previous eighteen months of Maharashtra administration. The distractors are built by rotating the correct pairing and by attaching a nationally famous name to a state task. Preparation means following state news for the committees appointed after a major incident or a policy decision, and recording the chairperson, the subject and the year for each. The two recurring subject areas are education policy and agricultural marketing, both of which appear in this single question.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The committee that drafted the National Education Policy 2020 was chaired by :

  • (a)Dr K. Kasturirangan
  • (b)T. S. R. Subramanian
  • (c)Dr Nitin Karmalkar
  • (d)Yashpal

  Answer(a) Dr K. Kasturirangan — the former ISRO chairman headed the committee that drafted the National Education Policy 2020, which replaced the National Policy on Education of 1986, and he subsequently chaired the national steering committee for the curriculum frameworks under the new policy.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Asia's largest onion market, frequently in the news when onion prices collapse or spike, is located at :

  • (a)Lasalgaon in Nashik district
  • (b)Pimpalgaon in Ahmednagar district
  • (c)Solapur
  • (d)Latur

  Answer(a) Lasalgaon in Nashik district — Maharashtra is India's largest onion-producing state and the Lasalgaon market yard is the country's principal price-setting centre for the crop, which is why committees on onion prices in the state are reported against it.