NDA (I) 2018 General Ability Test · Question 95 of 150

Correct — C, Both 1 and 2. The Indian Academy of Highway Engineers is a registered society, so statement 1 holds. It was registered in January 1983, under an earlier name, with the Registrar of Firms and Societies at Chandigarh under the Societies Registration Act of 1860, and it later took its present title. Statement 2 holds as well: the Academy describes itself as a collaborative body of the Central Government and the State Governments, set up in 1983 to meet the long-standing need for training highway engineers both at entry level and later in service. It works under the administrative control of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, and its campus is at Sector 62, Noida.

• (a)1 only — It accepts the society status but denies the Centre-State character. The Academy exists precisely to train highway engineers of the States as well as of the Centre, and it is constituted with participation from both.
• (b)2 only — It accepts the joint character but denies the society status. The Academy is not a government department, a public sector undertaking or a statutory corporation — it is a body registered under the Societies Registration Act.
• (d)Neither 1 nor 2 — Both statements are accurate, so a blanket rejection fails. This option tends to attract candidates who have simply never heard of the organisation and assume the item must be a trap.

Roads in India are built and maintained by several agencies at once. National Highways come under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, with the National Highways Authority of India as the principal executing body and the Border Roads Organisation building the strategic routes in border and mountain areas; State highways and other roads are the responsibility of the State public works departments. Because engineers from all those agencies need common technical training and common standards, a shared training institution makes sense — which is what the Indian Academy of Highway Engineers is. It is registered as a society rather than created by statute, an arrangement that lets both levels of government participate in one body without either owning it outright.

This is a recall item on an organisation most candidates will never have met, so the practical approach is to reason from the name and from what such a body would have to be. An academy for highway engineers serving a country whose roads are built partly by the Centre and partly by the States has an obvious reason to be jointly constituted, which supports statement 2. And training institutions of this kind in India are very commonly registered societies rather than statutory corporations, which supports statement 1. Both statements are also mild and unexceptionable claims — neither contains the sweeping word, the surprising number or the reversed relationship that usually marks a planted falsehood. As of the April 2018 exam this was the position, and it remains so: the Academy still functions as a society under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways from its Noida campus.

• The Indian Academy of Highway Engineers is a registered society, first registered in January 1983.
• It was registered under the Societies Registration Act of 1860, with the Registrar of Firms and Societies at Chandigarh.
• It is a collaborative body of the Central Government and the State Governments.
• It functions under the administrative control of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.
• Its purpose is the training of highway engineers, both at entry level and during service, and its campus is at Noida.

• Assuming an unfamiliar organisation must be purely a Central Government body.
• Confusing a registered society with a statutory body created by an Act of Parliament.
• Choosing 'neither' out of unfamiliarity when both statements are mild and plausible.

NDA regularly sets a two-statement item on one organisation or scheme of a ministry in the news, usually pairing its legal form with the question of who runs it.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Indian Academy of Highway Engineers functions under the administrative control of which ministry?

  • (a)Ministry of Education
  • (b)Ministry of Road Transport and Highways
  • (c)Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs
  • (d)Ministry of Heavy Industries

  Answer(b) Ministry of Road Transport and Highways — the ministry responsible for National Highways.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The development and maintenance of National Highways in India is chiefly entrusted to

  • (a)State public works departments
  • (b)National Highways Authority of India
  • (c)Indian Roads Congress
  • (d)Central Public Works Department

  Answer(b) National Highways Authority of India — the principal executing agency under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.