MPSC 2026 Prelims Paper-I · Question 49 of 100

Correct — option (3), "Both (a) and (b) are incorrect." Read the last line of the stem before anything else. The question asks which statement or statements are INCORRECT, not which are correct, and the word is printed in bold on the paper. Reversing that polarity by reflex is the single commonest way this question is lost, because both statements are near-quotations of the policy and a candidate skimming for familiarity will feel that both are right. Both are in fact wrong, each by one altered number. Statement (a) reproduces one of the National Population Policy 2000's national socio-demographic goals almost word for word. The policy's own text reads: promote delayed marriage for girls, not earlier than age 18 and preferably after 20 years of age. The question prints 21. The first half of the statement — not earlier than 18 — is correct and is there to buy the reader's confidence; the alteration is in the second half. So statement (a) is incorrect as printed. Statement (b) alters the policy's long-term objective. The National Population Policy 2000 sets out its objectives on three horizons: the immediate objective is to address the unmet needs for contraception, health care infrastructure and health personnel and to provide integrated service delivery for basic reproductive and child health care; the medium-term objective is to bring the total fertility rate to replacement levels by 2010; and the long-term objective is to achieve a stable population by 2045, at a level consistent with the requirements of sustainable economic growth, social development and environmental protection. The question prints 2030. So statement (b) is incorrect as printed. Both statements being false, the answer to a question asking which are incorrect is option (3). There is a reason the number 21 feels plausible to a candidate sitting this paper. A separate legislative proposal — the Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill, 2021, introduced in Parliament in December 2021 — sought to raise the legal minimum age of marriage for women from 18 to 21, and the figure has been in public discussion ever since. That is a different instrument from the year 2000 policy, and the policy's own words are what this question asks about. When a statement attributes a number to a named document, the test is what that document says, not what current debate suggests it ought to say. On the option structure: with two statements there are four possible verdicts and all four are printed — (a) alone false, (b) alone false, both false, and option (4) 'None of the above', which here means neither is false. Nothing can be eliminated by combination, so each statement has to be judged on its own. That is normal for a two-statement question and is precisely why the polarity of the stem matters so much: there is no structural safety net to catch a misread.

• (1)Only (a) is incorrect. — Option (1) correctly catches the altered age in statement (a) — the policy says preferably after 20 years of age, not 21 — but then accepts the year 2030 for a stable population. The National Population Policy 2000 puts its long-term objective at 2045. A candidate marking this has checked one number carefully and, having found the planted error, stopped looking. In a question that asks which statements are incorrect, finding one falsehood is never a reason to stop; the examiner is under no obligation to plant only one.
• (2)Only (b) is incorrect. — Option (2) correctly rejects 2030 for the stable-population target, which the policy sets at 2045, but accepts the marriage-age statement. The policy's goal reads 'not earlier than age 18 and preferably after 20 years of age', so the printed 21 is wrong. This is the option a candidate reaches when the current debate on raising the legal marriage age for women to 21 has displaced the policy's own wording in memory — the number is real and topical, but it belongs to a different instrument two decades later.
• (4)None of the above — Option (4) asserts that neither statement is incorrect — that is, that both reproduce the policy faithfully. Neither does: the marriage-age goal reads 20, not 21, and the long-term objective is a stable population by 2045, not 2030. This is also the option most exposed to a polarity misread, because a candidate who has silently converted the question into 'which are correct' and then decided both look correct will not find 'Both are correct' on the page and may take 'None of the above' as the nearest thing to it.

The National Population Policy 2000 marked a decisive shift in India's approach to population. The earlier programme, from the 1950s onward, worked through demographic targets and method-specific contraceptive quotas handed down to field workers, an approach that culminated in the coercive sterilisation drive of the Emergency and lost public legitimacy with it. The 2000 policy replaced targets with a voluntary, informed-choice and rights-based framework, and set population stabilisation as an outcome to be reached through better reproductive and child health services, girls' education, later marriage and lower infant mortality rather than through pressure on acceptors. Its architecture is three-tiered: an immediate objective of meeting unmet needs for contraception, health infrastructure and health personnel and delivering integrated basic reproductive and child health care; a medium-term objective of bringing the total fertility rate down to replacement level by 2010; and a long-term objective of a stable population by 2045, at a level consistent with sustainable economic growth, social development and environmental protection. Beneath those sit fourteen national socio-demographic goals for 2010, covering schooling, immunisation, institutional delivery, registration of vital events, communicable disease control and the small family norm.

Because the policy is a target-dated document, MPSC and UPSC both examine it by moving its numbers. The dates that matter are 2010 for the medium-term fertility objective and 2045 for the long-term stabilisation objective, and the ages that matter are 18 as the legal floor for a girl's marriage and 20 as the policy's preferred age. Two related institutional facts belong with it: the policy provided for a National Commission on Population presided over by the Prime Minister, and India's total fertility rate has since fallen below the replacement level of 2.1 — the National Family Health Survey-5 (2019-21) recorded a national TFR of 2.0. That achievement came later than the policy's 2010 target but well ahead of several State-level projections, and it is now the standard follow-up question: the policy's medium-term objective was missed on time and met in substance. Note also that a stable population is not the same as a stationary one; because of population momentum a country continues to grow for decades after fertility reaches replacement level, which is exactly why the long-term horizon in the policy sits as far out as 2045.

• National Population Policy 2000 objectives: immediate — address unmet needs for contraception, health care infrastructure and health personnel and provide integrated service delivery for basic reproductive and child health care; medium-term — bring the total fertility rate to replacement level by 2010; long-term — achieve a stable population by 2045.
• Among its national socio-demographic goals: promote delayed marriage for girls, not earlier than age 18 and preferably after 20 years of age. The question's '21' is an alteration of this goal.
• Other 2010 goals included reducing the infant mortality rate to below 30 per 1,000 live births, reducing the maternal mortality ratio to below 100 per 100,000 live births, universal immunisation against vaccine-preventable diseases, 80 per cent institutional deliveries, and 100 per cent registration of births, deaths, marriage and pregnancy.
• The policy provided for a National Commission on Population presided over by the Prime Minister, to oversee and review implementation.
• India's total fertility rate has since fallen to 2.0 as recorded by the National Family Health Survey-5 (2019-21), below the replacement level of 2.1 — later than the policy's 2010 medium-term target, but achieved.

• Missing the polarity of the stem. This question asks which statements are INCORRECT; a candidate who reads it as 'correct' and judges both statements false will look for an answer that is not on the page and may land on option (4).
• Substituting the current marriage-age debate for the policy's own words. The National Population Policy 2000 says 'preferably after 20 years of age'; the figure 21 comes from a separate legislative proposal two decades later.
• Confusing the policy's three horizons. Replacement-level fertility by 2010 is the medium-term objective; a stable population by 2045 is the long-term objective; addressing unmet need is the immediate objective.
• Stopping after finding one planted error. Nothing restricts an examiner to a single falsification, and in a 'which are incorrect' format the whole point may be that both statements fail.

The National Population Policy 2000 is asked almost entirely through its numbers, because it is a policy made of dated targets. Expect one of three shapes. The first is a date swap — 2045 replaced by 2030 or 2050, or the medium-term 2010 shifted. The second is an age or threshold swap — the preferred marriage age moved from 20 to 21, the infant mortality goal moved off 30 per 1,000, the maternal mortality goal moved off 100 per 100,000. The third is a horizon swap, in which a genuine objective is attached to the wrong tier, immediate for long-term or the reverse. All three are defeated by the same preparation: learn the three objectives with their years as a single line, and learn four or five of the socio-demographic goals with their exact figures. Then read the stem's polarity before choosing, because in this format an examiner who has taken the trouble to falsify both statements will usually also ask the question in the negative.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The medium-term objective of the National Population Policy, 2000 was to bring the total fertility rate to replacement levels by which year ?

  • (a)2005
  • (b)2010
  • (c)2020
  • (d)2045

  Answer(b) 2010. The policy sets three horizons: the immediate objective of meeting unmet needs for contraception, health infrastructure and health personnel; the medium-term objective of replacement-level fertility by 2010; and the long-term objective of a stable population by 2045, which is the distractor offered at option (d). India's total fertility rate in fact reached 2.0 as recorded in the National Family Health Survey-5 of 2019-21 — the target was met in substance, about a decade behind schedule.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The National Population Policy, 2000 provided for a National Commission on Population presided over by :

  • (a)The President of India
  • (b)The Prime Minister
  • (c)The Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare
  • (d)The Vice-Chairman of the Planning Commission

  Answer(b) The Prime Minister. The policy placed the Commission at the highest political level precisely because population stabilisation depends on health, education, women's status and rural development together, and needed a body that could pull those ministries and the State Governments into one forum rather than leaving the subject to the health ministry alone.