MPSC 2021 Prelims Paper-I · Question 46 of 100

Correct — option (3): both printed statements stand. Statement (a) is right. The Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission was launched by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy on 11 January 2010, as one of the eight national missions of the National Action Plan on Climate Change that the Government of India had announced on 30 June 2008. It was the flagship of that plan, designed to make grid-connected solar power competitive with conventional power by driving down cost through scale, and it was structured in three phases with a cumulative grid-connected target of 20,000 MW by 2022. Statement (b) is right as well, and the reason it is right is the part most candidates miss. On 17 June 2015 the Union Cabinet approved a five-fold increase in the Mission's target, and the government's own announcement of the decision was headed 'Revision of cumulative targets under National Solar Mission from 20,000 MW by 2021-22 to 1,00,000 MW'. The revised 1,00,000 MW — 100 GW — was to be reached by the end of the same Plan-period year, and it was split into 40 GW of grid-connected rooftop solar and 60 GW of large and medium-scale grid-connected projects. The announcement put the investment needed at around Rs 6,00,000 crore, provided Rs 15,050 crore of capital subsidy in the first phase for rooftop projects and for viability-gap-funded projects developed through the Solar Energy Corporation of India, and estimated that the new target would abate more than 170 million tonnes of carbon dioxide over its life cycle. So the statement's figure and the statement's date are both the government's own, and a candidate who has revised the Mission only as it stood at launch will hold 20,000 MW and read statement (b) as false. Both statements being sound, the option that accepts the pair is option (3). For what happened next, which falls after this paper was written: India crossed 100 GW of installed solar capacity on 31 January 2025.

• (1)(a) only is correct — This option gets the launch year right and then rejects the target, and it is the commonest way to lose this question. It is the answer of a candidate who learnt the National Solar Mission when it was new and never updated the figure: the Mission was indeed announced with a cumulative grid-connected target of 20,000 MW, and against that number the statement's 1,00,000 MW looks like a wild exaggeration. The revision is the fact that closes the gap. The Union Cabinet raised the target five-fold on 17 June 2015, to 1,00,000 MW made up of 40 GW of rooftop and 60 GW of large and medium grid-connected capacity, and every government document from that date onwards carries the larger number. The lesson generalises well beyond this item: a scheme's numbers are revised more often than its name, and a target learnt once and never refreshed is one of the most reliable sources of error in current-affairs questions.
• (2)(b) only is correct — This option accepts the revised target and rejects the launch year, which reverses the usual error and is harder to account for. The Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission was launched on 11 January 2010; there is no competing date. A candidate might arrive here by attaching the Mission to the National Action Plan on Climate Change and then dating the Mission to the plan, which was released on 30 June 2008 — the plan is two years older than the mission, and the eight missions under it were launched separately over the following years. Another route is to confuse the Mission with the International Solar Alliance, launched jointly by India and France at the Paris climate conference on 30 November 2015 and headquartered at Gurugram, which is a treaty-based international organisation rather than an Indian mission. Neither confusion survives a moment's separation of the three: plan 2008, mission 2010, alliance 2015.
• (4)(a) and (b) both are incorrect — This option rejects the pair, and both halves of the rejection fail. The launch year is a matter of record — 11 January 2010, by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy — and the 1,00,000 MW figure with its 2021-22 horizon is the wording of the government's own Cabinet decision of 17 June 2015. A candidate typically reaches this row not by knowing something contrary but by knowing nothing definite and treating the rejecting option as the safe one. It is not safe. In a two-statement item the four rows exhaust the possibilities — only the first true, only the second true, both true, neither true — so a rejecting row is printed in every such question regardless of the facts, and its presence carries no information at all. On a paper that deducts a quarter of the marks for a wrong answer, guessing the rejecting row is exactly as expensive as guessing any other.

The National Action Plan on Climate Change was launched on 30 June 2008 and set out eight national missions: the National Solar Mission, the National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency, the National Mission on Sustainable Habitat, the National Water Mission, the National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Eco-system, the National Mission for a Green India, the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture, and the National Mission on Strategic Knowledge for Climate Change. The solar mission, named for Jawaharlal Nehru and launched on 11 January 2010, was the plan's centrepiece. Its logic was that solar power was then far costlier than coal power and that the way to close the gap was guaranteed demand at scale: the mission bundled solar with cheaper thermal power to make tariffs bearable, ran reverse auctions through the Solar Energy Corporation of India that drove discovered tariffs down sharply over the decade, funded solar parks that solved land and evacuation problems in advance, and offered viability gap funding and capital subsidy for rooftop installations. The target was raised from 20,000 MW to 1,00,000 MW by the Cabinet on 17 June 2015, in a 40 GW rooftop and 60 GW utility-scale split. Around the mission sit the other instruments of India's solar policy that examiners ask about together — the renewable purchase obligation on distribution companies, the solar park scheme, the PM-KUSUM scheme for solar pumps and agricultural feeders, and the International Solar Alliance launched with France at Paris in November 2015 and headquartered at Gurugram.

Renewable energy is a standing theme in MPSC's economy, geography and environment sections, and this two-statement item shows the Commission's preferred way of testing it: pair an easy fact with a revised one. The launch year of a flagship mission is the sort of thing every candidate has; the current target after a revision is the sort of thing only a candidate who reads the scheme afresh each year has. The habit that answers such questions is to keep, for every major scheme, a short line carrying its launch year, its ministry, its original target and any later revision with the date of that revision — because the examiner's error is planted in the revised figure far more often than in the name or the year. It is also worth noting the shape of the option set. This is a two-statement question, so the four rows exhaust the logical possibilities and nothing can be inferred from the fact that a particular row exists. Decide each statement on its own, mark it, and read off the row that matches; that mechanical procedure is what protects a candidate from the pull of a familiar-sounding number in the wrong place.

• The Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission was launched by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy on 11 January 2010, as the flagship of the eight national missions under the National Action Plan on Climate Change of 30 June 2008.
• Its original cumulative grid-connected target was 20,000 MW; on 17 June 2015 the Union Cabinet approved a five-fold increase, announced as a 'Revision of cumulative targets under National Solar Mission from 20,000 MW by 2021-22 to 1,00,000 MW'.
• The revised 1,00,000 MW target was split into 40 GW of grid-connected rooftop solar and 60 GW from large and medium-scale grid-connected projects, with total investment estimated at about Rs 6,00,000 crore.
• The Cabinet decision provided Rs 15,050 crore of capital subsidy in the first phase, for rooftop projects and for viability-gap-funded projects developed through the Solar Energy Corporation of India, and estimated abatement of over 170 million tonnes of carbon dioxide over the target's life cycle.
• India crossed 100 GW of installed solar capacity on 31 January 2025 — after this paper was written — and the International Solar Alliance, launched by India and France at Paris on 30 November 2015, is headquartered at Gurugram and is a separate institution from the Mission.

• Holding a scheme's original target after it has been revised — the 20,000 MW figure for the National Solar Mission is the single commonest reason this question is lost
• Dating a mission to the plan that contains it, so that the National Solar Mission of 2010 is pushed back to the National Action Plan on Climate Change of 2008
• Confusing the National Solar Mission with the International Solar Alliance, which is an intergovernmental organisation launched in 2015 and not an Indian mission
• Reading a rejecting row as the safe answer in a two-statement item, when all four rows are printed as a matter of logic and none of them signals anything
• Mixing up capacity units — 1,00,000 MW, 100 GW and 100,000 megawatts are the same number, and a candidate who converts carelessly can reject a correct statement

Renewable energy questions arrive in MPSC papers in three shapes. The first is a scheme item of the present kind, testing the launch year, the ministry, the target or a revision to the target, and the error is nearly always planted in the number rather than in the name. The second is a data item — India's installed solar capacity, its rank among solar producers, the share of renewables in total installed capacity, the leading state — and these must be refreshed for each year's paper because they move. The third is institutional, asking about the Solar Energy Corporation of India, the renewable purchase obligation, the International Solar Alliance or the Bureau of Energy Efficiency. Keeping a one-line entry per scheme with its year, ministry, original target and revised target covers the first and most of the third, and a single page of current capacity figures covers the second.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The target of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission was revised from 20,000 MW to 1,00,000 MW by a Union Cabinet decision taken in which year ?

  • (a)2010
  • (b)2012
  • (c)2015
  • (d)2019

  Answer(c) 2015 — the Union Cabinet approved the five-fold increase on 17 June 2015, splitting the revised 1,00,000 MW into 40 GW of grid-connected rooftop solar and 60 GW of large and medium-scale grid-connected projects, with about Rs 6,00,000 crore of investment envisaged and Rs 15,050 crore of capital subsidy in the first phase. The Mission itself had been launched on 11 January 2010 with a cumulative grid-connected target of 20,000 MW, which is the figure the revision replaced.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The National Solar Mission is one of the national missions under which of the following ?

  • (a)The National Environment Policy, 2006
  • (b)The National Action Plan on Climate Change, 2008
  • (c)The Energy Conservation Act, 2001
  • (d)The International Solar Alliance framework agreement, 2016

  Answer(b) The National Action Plan on Climate Change, 2008 — launched on 30 June 2008, it set out eight national missions, of which the National Solar Mission is the first and best known; the others cover enhanced energy efficiency, sustainable habitat, water, the Himalayan ecosystem, a green India, sustainable agriculture and strategic knowledge for climate change. The Energy Conservation Act of 2001 created the Bureau of Energy Efficiency, and the International Solar Alliance is a separate treaty-based organisation headquartered at Gurugram.