MPSC 2025 Prelims Paper-I · Question 92 of 100

Correct — option (3), 'A, B, C'. The Bhagwan Birsa Munda Jodaraste (road-linking) Scheme is a Maharashtra state government initiative, its implementation approved by the state cabinet on 18 August 2023, which makes statement A accurate. Statement B, that the scheme was launched to connect tribal villages, states the scheme's core, named purpose — its central objective is linking tribal habitations across the state's tribal sub-plan area, spanning 17 districts, to the main road network, which is the founding aim the scheme is named for. Statement C supplies the more specific detail of how far that connectivity mandate reaches: alongside linking villages to perennial main roads and upgrading roads that are currently usable for only part of the year, the scheme explicitly extends to connecting primary health centres and ashram shalas (residential tribal schools) within the tribal sub-plan area to the main road network, so that access to healthcare and education, not villages alone, improves with the road linkage. Statement D fails: no discontinuation of the scheme in January 2025 is on record, and a state infrastructure scheme approved as recently as August 2023, with a multi-year construction programme covering thousands of kilometres of road, is not the kind of initiative that gets wound up within roughly a year and a half of its own approval. With A, B and C all standing and D failing, the correct set is A, B and C together.

• (1)A, B — Correctly credits the Maharashtra government's launch of the scheme and its core village-connectivity aim, but wrongly drops statement C, which supplies genuine, documented detail — the scheme's extension to primary health centres and ashram shalas — rather than an incorrect addition.
• (2)B, C — Correctly keeps the scheme's village-connectivity aim and its extension to health centres and schools, but wrongly drops statement A, which is factually correct: the scheme is a Maharashtra state government initiative, approved by the state cabinet in August 2023.
• (4)A, C and D — Correctly keeps the scheme's state-government origin and its extension to health centres and ashram shalas, but adds statement D, for which no discontinuation in January 2025 is documented, and drops statement B, which correctly states the scheme's core tribal-village connectivity purpose.

The Bhagwan Birsa Munda Jodaraste (road-linking) Scheme is a Maharashtra state infrastructure initiative, approved for implementation by the state cabinet on 18 August 2023, aimed at connecting tribal villages across the state's tribal sub-plan area — spanning 17 districts — to the main road network. Its scope, projected at roughly Rs 50 billion and around 6,838 kilometres of road construction, goes beyond simple village connectivity: the scheme is designed to perennialise roads that are currently passable for only part of the year, and specifically to connect primary health centres and ashram shalas within the tribal sub-plan area to the main road network, so that healthcare access and residential-school access improve alongside general village connectivity.

MPSC regularly tests Maharashtra's own tribal-welfare and infrastructure schemes as state-specific current affairs that a candidate preparing only from national-level material would not encounter. The scheme's name honours Birsa Munda, the tribal freedom fighter and reformer whose birth anniversary, 15 November, is observed nationally as Janjatiya Gaurav Diwas, and questions of this kind reward reading past the scheme's headline purpose (connecting tribal villages) to its documented, more specific scope (extending that connectivity to health centres and schools).

• The Bhagwan Birsa Munda Jodaraste Scheme is a Maharashtra state government initiative; its implementation was approved by the state cabinet on 18 August 2023.
• The scheme aims to connect tribal villages across the state's tribal sub-plan area, spanning 17 districts, to the main road network.
• Its scope, projected at around Rs 50 billion, covers approximately 6,838 kilometres of road, including perennialising roads currently usable for only part of the year.
• The scheme specifically extends to connecting primary health centres and ashram shalas (residential tribal schools) within the tribal sub-plan area to the main road network.
• No official discontinuation of the scheme is documented; it remains, as approved, a multi-year state infrastructure programme.

• Reading 'only launched to connect tribal villages' as a narrowing claim that must exclude any broader scope, when the scheme's founding purpose is exactly village connectivity even as its documented reach extends further to health centres and schools
• Assuming a scheme approved relatively recently, in August 2023, must already have been discontinued by early 2025, without any documented basis for that claim
• Confusing this state scheme, named for Birsa Munda, with central schemes bearing his name, such as the Pradhan Mantri Janjati Adivasi Nyaya Maha Abhiyan (PM-JANMAN)

MPSC tests Maharashtra-specific tribal welfare and infrastructure schemes through statement sets that pair the scheme's origin (which government launched it, and when) with its precise operational scope (exactly which institutions or areas it connects), and typically plants one unverifiable or false claim about discontinuation or termination among otherwise accurate statements. The defence is to hold both the scheme's launch authority and date and its documented scope as separate, specific facts, and to treat any claim of discontinuation as needing its own separate confirmation rather than assuming it follows naturally from a scheme's age.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Bhagwan Birsa Munda Jodaraste Scheme, approved by the Maharashtra cabinet in August 2023, aims to connect tribal villages to the main road network across how many districts of the state's tribal sub-plan area ?

  • (a)12
  • (b)15
  • (c)17
  • (d)20

  Answer(c) 17 — the scheme covers Maharashtra's tribal sub-plan area spanning 17 districts, aiming to connect tribal villages, and specifically primary health centres and ashram shalas within that area, to the main road network.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Besides connecting tribal villages, the Bhagwan Birsa Munda Jodaraste Scheme specifically extends road connectivity to which institutions within the tribal sub-plan area ?

  • (a)District courts and collectorates
  • (b)Primary health centres and ashram shalas
  • (c)Railway stations and bus depots
  • (d)Forest checkposts and range offices

  Answer(b) Primary health centres and ashram shalas — the scheme's documented scope extends beyond village connectivity to specifically link these health and residential-school institutions to the main road network in the tribal sub-plan area.