MPSC 2025 Prelims Paper-I · Question 50 of 100

Correct — option (3), both statements A and B are correct. The Twenty Point Programme (TPP) was announced by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on 26 June 1975, in the early days of the Emergency, as a package of directives aimed squarely at rural poverty and basic welfare rather than at any single sector. Its twenty points, taken together, covered expanding irrigation, stepping up rural employment, distributing surplus ceiling land and house-sites to the landless, fixing and enforcing minimum agricultural wages, rehabilitating bonded labourers, extending the public distribution system, building rural housing, expanding primary health and family-planning services, and pushing literacy and welfare schemes for women and children. That mix serves both statements at once: A, because irrigation, housing, health, education and a functioning public distribution system are all direct improvements to the standard of living of the rural population; and B, because land redistribution, minimum wages, bonded-labour rehabilitation and PDS access are targeted specifically at people below the poverty line, i.e. poverty alleviation in the narrower sense. Neither statement describes a separate, rival objective — 'raising the standard of living' and 'alleviating poverty' were two ways of stating the same underlying aim of the programme, which is why the correct reading is that both hold together rather than one displacing the other.

• (1)Only A is correct — This would require B to be false, but several of the programme's original twenty points — land redistribution to the landless, minimum wages for agricultural labour, rehabilitation of bonded labourers, and expansion of the public distribution system — are aimed specifically at the population below the poverty line, not at the standard of living of the population in general. Excluding poverty alleviation from the programme's objective does not match its actual content.
• (2)Only B is correct — This would require A to be false, but points such as expanding irrigation, rural housing, primary health facilities, drinking-water supply and education apply to raising general living standards, not only to the poorest segment. Reducing the programme to poverty alleviation alone leaves out this broader welfare content that the twenty points plainly include.
• (4)None of the above — This discards both stated objectives, but the Twenty Point Programme is documented, then and since, as exactly this combination of welfare and poverty-focused measures — it is one of independent India's best-known anti-poverty and welfare initiatives, still tracked today (later revised as TPP-2006) by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. An option that denies both objectives does not match the programme's well-recorded content or purpose.

The Twenty Point Programme (TPP) is a Government of India umbrella programme, first launched on 26 June 1975, that bundles together welfare and poverty-alleviation measures spanning agriculture, rural employment, land reform, housing, health, education and social welfare into a single monitored package rather than a single-sector scheme. It has been revised periodically to reflect changing priorities — most recently as TPP-2006 — while retaining its original character as a checklist of basic-needs commitments tracked at the state and district level.

MPSC's economy section frequently tests landmark development programmes by their launch date, launching authority and the breadth of their objectives, since programmes like the TPP are cited across decades of Five-Year Plans and poverty-alleviation policy. The habit this question rewards is recognising that broad umbrella programmes of this kind are rarely built around one single objective — both raising general welfare and specifically targeting the poor are usually present together, so a statement-pair question about such a programme should be read for whether either half is actually excluded, not assumed to be a contest between two answers.

• The Twenty Point Programme was announced by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on 26 June 1975, shortly after the declaration of the Emergency.
• Its original twenty points spanned irrigation, rural employment, land ceiling and redistribution, minimum agricultural wages, bonded-labour rehabilitation, housing, drinking water, health, family planning, education and welfare of women and children.
• The programme has been revised over time, most recently restructured as TPP-2006, and continues to be monitored by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI).

• Treating 'improving standard of living' and 'poverty alleviation' as mutually exclusive objectives when a broad umbrella programme like the TPP pursues both at once
• Confusing the 1975 Twenty Point Programme with other Emergency-period measures such as the National Population Policy or land ceiling amendments, which were separate initiatives
• Assuming an old, Emergency-era programme has lapsed, when the TPP in fact continues in revised form (TPP-2006) and is still officially monitored

MPSC frequently tests the launch date, launching context and breadth of objectives of landmark development programmes with two-statement or three-statement questions, rewarding candidates who know that flagship umbrella schemes usually combine several stated goals rather than pursuing one narrowly.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Twenty Point Programme was announced on 26 June 1975 by which Prime Minister ?

  • (a)Lal Bahadur Shastri
  • (b)Indira Gandhi
  • (c)Morarji Desai
  • (d)Rajiv Gandhi

  Answer(b) Indira Gandhi — she announced the programme in the early days of the Emergency, declared earlier that same year.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The current, restructured version of the Twenty Point Programme, still monitored by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, is officially referred to as ?

  • (a)TPP-1986
  • (b)TPP-1995
  • (c)TPP-2006
  • (d)TPP-2014

  Answer(c) TPP-2006 — the most recent restructuring of the original 1975 programme.